#is a theme for him- and the ways he's been proactive in the killing game consistently lacked regard for others' feelings/individuality

[windcarvedlyre]

I've been following @druidposting's DR2 playthrough on discord and we just had a really good discussion about DR's Closing Arguments. Specifically the way the murderer is depicted as grey and featureless, which until now I found a bit annoying.

In Danganronpa it's repeatedly the case that we don't have the full picture until the talking actually stops- which always goes beyond the end of the trial. We generally vote first and come to understand what the murderer's actual motive was, sometimes filling in important pieces of the timeline in the process, afterwards.

But none of that matters for the killing game because characters' emotions aren't directly relevant to who was the 'blackened'- the only thing that matters to Monokuma- so it comes out afterwards and does nothing to change their execution. It doesn't matter how sympathetic they are (basically everyone) or whether other people share responsibility for the situation (eg. Hanamura, Pekoyama, Momota) or whether they intended to murder at all (Nanami). They objectively pulled the trigger and nothing else matters. Nothing about them as a person matters.

The Closing Argument mechanic might illustrate that problem- literally. They're a dramatic, conclusive summary of the entire case... constructed before the vote even happens, before we know if we're actually right, and they're missing something really important:

The actual perpetrator.

We quite literally don't even begin to see the real person behind the crime, any real exploration of their mental state, anything besides the cold, hard facts of the murder that are necessary to convict them, until the comic finishes and the protagonist makes their final accusation- replacing the grey figure with their real appearance in a shot that's often intensely emotional.

And these comics lack crucial parts of the case's timeline and sometimes important parts of the very scenes they depict that we only find out about afterwards. And those are what we know; characters may die with some pieces of the truth and prevent us from ever learning them. These aren't objective depictions of the murder, they're the protagonist's subjective attempt to connect the facts they have. A join-the-dots portrait of someone with missing dots and no colour.

Even characters' expressions may not match how they truly feel, with the grey placeholder potentially looking way more confident and sinister than they were in reality. Pasting Falter's commentary here since they put it well.

For obvious reasons this could especially be a problem for characters that die before the trial- the ones we never get a post-vote testimony from. DR1 chapter 4 really highlighted that in the way Asahina's huge misinterpretation of Oogami's feelings took up a lot of the post-trial discussion, only for Monokuma to reveal Oogami's real suicide note and recontextualise everything.

It might really be a problem for how Komaeda's depicted in DR2 chapter 5. While he isn't greyed out, we get panel after panel where he's either level-headed or maniacally evil, and even the depictions of his self-torture and death don't humanise him:

But we know that his real feelings were more complicated than that. We have his actual corpse to compare the last page to.

He died afraid.

If we approach the comic as Hinata's mental image of him instead of reality, he died without anyone truly understanding him. He was alarming, very hard to relate to, actively fought against people doing so, ensured even the killer didn't watch him die, and the survivors couldn't begin to understand his motive until a chapter later. The Closing Argument reflects that.

Early in DR1 Togami calls out the rest of his class for judging others by their own standards. However, he, too, is doing this, maybe more so than many other characters; his inability to view other people through anything but the cold, brutal logic of the killing game bites him in the ass in chapter 4. In DR2 chapter 2 voting without a good understanding of Pekoyama's motive or Kuzuryuu's involvement nearly got everyone killed. Komaeda's a walking embodiment of the problems with flattening people into caricatures and not empathising with them, suffered from people doing that back to him, and his case- the Closing Argument for which turned everyone else into grey placeholders- was impossible to solve with objective facts. It was only survivable because the survivors cooperated and one person tried to analyse things the way he would.

The games have always been a critique of the justice system and Japanese society and push us to care about others as individuals, not reduce them to- and judge their right to exist by- something they've done or their net impact on society. There are always consequences when someone neglects to do that, and the above might be yet another way the games explore that theme.

[ananke-xiii]

Rowena and the thick, bloody umbilical cord between choices and faults.

In a previous post of mine I’ve explored a little bit how Mary and Kelly represent a sort of “missed opportunity” for, respectively, Sam and Jack.

At the beginning of s13 Sam resents the fact that he hasn’t been proactive in seeking to create a relationship with his mother and now that she’s (presumably) gone he doesn’t want to deal with that reality. He had wasted his second chance. Jack, on the other hand, never even had a first opportunity to begin with but, unlike Sam, has experienced a sense of unity with his mother so extreme that one of the first things that he tells Sam is that he was his mother(!!!).

S13 reinforces the Mother-Son symbolism because, after Jack’s birth, a rift is opened in space (apparently not in time?): Kelly stays (dead, rip girl I love you) on one side of it while Mary crosses it and finds herself in Apocalypse World. To make things even more clear, this is no random parallel universe: this is the alternate reality where Mary didn’t deal with Azazel. So mothers and their choices/faults are a central theme in this season. Or, well, more or less.

To complete the mothers’ trimurti or, better, tridevi we’re missing the final mother, the destroyer who is, of course, Rowena. It’s therefore quite apt that Rowena reaches her highest potential this season and even confronts Death. What motivates her in an interesting blend of (missing)love and (lacking)power. Lucifer is as part of her story as Kelly’s and Mary’s. Unlike these two, though, she doesn’t have a son who resurrects her, nor a turned-benefactor cosmic being who offers her resurrection as a gift to her son. Rowena has to resurrect herself. Not once but twice. She is, perhaps, the loneliest character in the whole series.

This is actually quite ironic because, if we look back on previous seasons, her “choice” to kill Oskar, her putative son, was what triggered the whole chain of events (the freeing of Amara first and Lucifer second) that directly link Rowena with Mary and Kelly.

It’s only natural, then, that s13 Rowena keeps representing the reversal of the Mary and Sam/ Kelly and Jack relationships because there is no son who’s looking for her, rather she is the mother who’s looking for her (dead) child. Like Sam, she also needs someone who can access another dimension to bring Crowley back but, unlike him, she’s not successful. Now, ngl, this pisses me off to no end, like of course I can understand the real reasons why Crowley couldn’t be brought back, still I kinda hate how it was narratively framed.

When, in "Funeralia", Rowena says that life is unfair she is right but not in the general, pessimistic sense of the phrase: she's right because in-universe some deaths are more important than others and people get back on board depending on whether or not they're still a role to play for them. Rowena's faith in magic is actually justified because magic is the only thing that can help her. And the tragic thing is that it's also what damns her in the process because it's the only form of power she can have access to. There are no angels or cosmic entities looking out for her. She's just... alone.

So, perhaps, it's not that I necessarily hate how her failure to bring Crowley back is described, I just see it as further proof that Rowena is the best example to show how in Supernatural the game is rigged from the beginning and we didn’t even need an interfering and pervy God to realize it. That's all we've been seeing it since S1. All those infinite, booooring talks about being good/evil or doing good/bad actually mean nothing because, at the end of the day, in this show what really matters is how useful you can be, to whom and why (and this is way less booooring, you learn a lot of interesting things about these characters if you go down this road, it's grim but it's more rewarding).

S13 is also when the final connection between Rowena and the Winchesters, Sam to be more precise, is established which is indicative of the fact that she will inevitably die. Before S13 her story was her own, after “Funeralia” it cannot be extricated from Sam’s. To some degree, it’s quite similar to what happened with Crowley and Dean. What’s more, just like Crowley’s powers and shrewdness are what really carry the plot from s6 to s12, magic and spells (and therefore Rowena’s role in the story) will be the key for many plot points from s13 to s15. But there is a big difference.

Both Crowley and Rowena’s sacrifices are described as heroic but, let’s be honest, only Rowena’s was. Crowley’s demise was a clean-up after his own mess at best. It also proved to be unnecessary. Rowena and that awful MBOL’s egg thingy would have managed to confine Lucifer, like, they actually did it. It was Crowley who perverted the spell for reasons that I personally find OOC. I would’ve liked the Crowley vs Lucifer power struggle but not the way it was done in s12 because it felt very nonsensical to me. As in: I can see you need a reason to keep Lucifer around and this is what you’ve come up with but it’s still quite illogical.

At its hidden and secret core S13 is the season of the “let’s reframe the sons’ stories and blame it on the mothers”. Just like Kelly is blamed for Castiel’s ideal vision of Jack and Mary’s "choice" is established as the most important point in the whole show, Rowena-as-Mother must face the same fate: it was her fault if Crowley, Fergus!, ended the way he ended. It’s a naaaaaaaaaaaaaah for me.

This is what we’re told in “Funeralia”:

Rowena: Oh, but it is. Death has something I want. Sam: What’s that? Rowena: My son. After you told me he was gone, how he died, I had an unexpected reaction. We had our differences, but it’s my fault he went down the path he did. I left him. Dean: We’re talking about Crowley-- demon, King of Hell? Rowena: We’re talking about Fergus-- a man abandoned and loveless, tricked by a demon, died in a gutter. He deserved better from the world. From me.

Now, just to be clear: yes, Rowena had the responsibility to do better; yes, she was the absolute worst; yes, she played no small role in her son’s story. However, I personally don’t like all these negative associations between “worlds” and “mothers” as if every fucking thing in the universe is dependent solely on them. How did we end up here? It’s almost as if absent fathers are, like, not THAT bad after all (and the show, as far as I'm concerned, ultimately approves of and absolves absent fathers). So I’m very suspicious of the way motherhood is portrayed specifically in s13 and Rowena’s attempt at redemption well demonstrates that there is reason to be so.

This dialogue in “Funeralia” confirms my gut feeling:

Sam: You know, what happened with Crowley? That wasn’t your fault. Rowena: He never had a chance. Dean: He made his choices, just like we all do. Look, every one of us has done something that we have to live with, that were trying to make up for. Every one of us. Sam: Even without all that extra juice, you’re still the deadliest witch around [Sam's flattering Rowena. He's gonna ask for her help in 3,2,1...]. Rowena: Flatterer. Sam: Yeah, well, we, um... we may need your help [Here we go!]. To save our family. To… hell, to save the world. Dean: You wanna be redeemed? This would be a pretty big step. Rowena: And do you think I still can be? Dean: Yeah, I do.

I mean, not to be rude, but who the fuck cares if Dean Winchester thinks that Rowena can be redeemed? Like, how is Rowena’s redemption (which is strictly connected to her being a bad mother and not, among other things, a zero-regret murderer, which she also happens to be, for instance) connected to saving the Winchester’s family? Don’t get me wrong, I understand that this is SPN and that Sam and Dean’s problems are Apocalypse-level problems (lol, they really did that, when I say that their story is like a cosmogony maybe I’m not that wrong) but, as I’ve said, I cannot help but notice the similarities between Rowena’s arc this season with Mary’s and Jack’s, i.e. you can be redeemed if you either do something useful for the Winchesters or... realize that it's not your "fault" that your sons suffered terribily because "choosing" to deal with Azazel was actually the right choice... for the world. How come fathers saving the world are framed as heroic while mothers actively creating worlds by making hard choices that benefit the greater good need redemption?

So to sum up: while fathers invade S13’s main storyline as solvers, restorers and fixers, mothers are the bones of the story, they carry its weight and its sins but get little if nothing in return: Kelly stays dead, Mary ends up helping out a world that absolves her of her Original Sin but that’s nevertheless a mess (you can never win lol) and Rowena can’t get her son back (but she can save Sam and Dean's family the world!). Looks good, right? Hurray mommy!

[yuisdad]

Piofiore but better

I’ve been having different ideas on how Piofiore could be different (better) and I wanted to share them.

Have the mafia families…not be a mafia. Have the Falzone and Visconti families be organizations who help Burlone, but the Falzone’s work for the church while the Viscontis are more of a vigilante group. The Laoshu’s name would be changed to Azalea because Laoshu means “mouse”…and the group is Chinese…Otomate why. The Azalea organization exist to stir up trouble in Burlone for fun. Yang would be a fun antagonist who tries to stop the Falzone and Visconti organizations because he’s a jerk. That’s it. All of the organizations are against the police too. That’s why Roberto hates them.

The Falzone family and the Key Maiden usually need to be sacrificed for the holy relics to activate so they can protect Burlone from falling to hell. A Falzone family member dies (what happened to Dante’s father) while the Key Maiden’s dead body would be encased in stone to make the relics’ power stronger. The church are also antagonists and use the Falzones and the next Key Maiden for their plans.

The setting would take place in modern times, 2025-2026, but it has a 20s aesthetic and technology due to the city not advancing with the rest of the world (mostly due to the church not advancing how to protect Burlone since the 20s). The sequel would have them slowly getting accustomed to new technology and education.

Liliana: Would start off as passive, but would become proactive depending on which organization she interacts with. She wants to protect Burlone as well, so she tries to find a different way to protect it that doesn’t involve a sacrifice. Uses kitchen utensils as her weapon of choice.

Dante: Would come off as a cold-hearted leader, but is actually a dork who has no idea what he’s doing, causing Nicola to do most of the work for him. A complete disaster man. He’s similar to Shenhe from Genshin Impact in that regard. His route would be the true route and it’s main theme would be defying destiny and choosing your own. His route also involves fighting demons.

Gilbert: Is pretty much the same from his game counterpart. His route would also be the same, except it has a more found family vibe to it. Gilbert and Oliver are boyfriends in the true end. His route is also self-contained and has nothing to do with the overall plot.

Yang: He’s a fun antagonist who likes to cause trouble for the lolz. Liliana decides to join in on the fun. Is Lan and Fei’s guardian and will literally kill anyone who hurts them. Yang’s route is just pure fun and has nothing to do with the overall plot.

Orlok: Him and Liliana have more of a sibling dynamic. Is tasked with making sure she’s safe from the church’s grasp…but is unknowingly working for an organization that wants to destroy Burlone and rebuild it in their image. Orlok ends up choosing a better family in Lili and goes against his father’s wishes towards the end of his route. Is a little more involved with the overall plot.

Nicola: Doesn’t have a route of his own, but does share one with Dante and has endings of his own. Nicola does most of Dante’s work for him, making him the unofficial leader of the Falzone group. He seems like a sleazebag who flirts with anyone he sees, but he’s actually rather sweet. He only flirts with willing participants. Likes to mess with Roberto a lot. Nicola works with Lili to try and convince Dante to not sacrifice himself for Burlone. Has his own route in the sequel.

Emilio: The holy relic that protects Burlone. He’s an angel who’s been saving Burlone form falling to hell. He looks like a child and is a child. The church has been using him ever since he’s helped them in 1925, and is essentially a prisoner. They only allow him to eat the souls of a Falzone member and the Key Maiden, causing the poor boy to starve. He longs for either death or to become human. In the true end, he sacrifices himself for Burlone, finally giving himself and Burlone peace. He reincarnates into a newborn baby, becoming a human.

Direttore: A main character in Gilbert’s and Dante’s routes. His real name is Ritton “Henri” Lambert, and his family owns the Casino in Bulone. His older sister, Chloe, was going to be the next owner of the casino, but she was a Key Maiden, resulting in her and Dante’s father, Silvio, to be sacrificed for Burlone. He saw his sister being killed by Emilio when he was young, so he vowed his vengeance to the church and the Falzone family. In Gilbert’s route, he tries to help Gilbert clear his name from a false claim of him using counterfeit bills. In Dante’s route, he realizes that the Falzone family are also victims to the church’s practices, so he kills the church heads that kept Emilio a prisoner and who turned his sister’s dead body into stone.

True end: Dante’s route. Now that Emilio and the chruch heads are gone, Burlone finally has peace. The Key Maidens are free from their stone prisons and are given proper burials. Dante becomes better at his job, and Nicola starts a life outside of Dante. Gilbert and Oliver end up in a relationship together. Yang is still up to no good, but acts more like friends to the Falzone and Visconti groups. Orlok works at the church with Lili. The casino is owned by a different family, and Henri lives a quite life as the head of an orphanage. He finds a newborn baby (Emilio) and ends up raising the baby as his own child.

[itsbenedict]

ok so im reading through Almost Nowhere and i have Complaints about it's structure and wanted to vent but also not to the point of actually commenting on the thing itself. (its a Well-made story. this all comes from a place of admiration/love for the thing so i didnt want to put it in a public tag)

So after seeing you reblog the ending announcement i started reading it. current spot is chapter xxi, or sylvie vs hector's forces. (is sylvie just a jadesprite expy. is hector just a Dirk/Dave. is that what is going on. ugh it figures. anyway.)

pros: premise fills that timeline bullshit appetite, and has some fascinating evolutions of its timeline and the puzzle therein. the actual setup and climax of the Annes escape story was very exciting, and the notebooks are a fascinating conceit. and the entire story could be summarized as "hey aliens put everyone in mini The Matrix realities and people gotta figure out how to deal with that/escape?" which is a pretty good premise. the Annes were my favorite part.

cons:

due to being about timeline bullshit and specifically miscommunication causing disaster, it also is incredibly hard to parse even when it's trying to be clear. i get the multiple narrator conceit, and i get that Azad is glued to a thesaurus, but it feels like its getting in it's own way way more often than not. Its doing the "im using the more complicated word to sound smart rather than be accurate or communicate my message" thing, and its hard to parse how much of that is purposeful. I found it exhausting after a few hundred pages.

as time loops are a core aspect of the story, most of the characters feel like they have very little actual impact or agency on the plot. they're protagonists as designated, but grant and cordelia do very little of note- where i am now Grant's basically just a guy to get explained at and he got addicted to a sub-reality game for a while. he is important because sylvie is his dog, but beyond pining for Azad and getting things explained to him, Grant doesnt feel like he Does anything

however Grant is still my favorite character because he's the only one who actually says "what the fuck are you talking about, explain it better" which the entire text desperately needs.

its gotten to the point that the text's own coy obfuscation of itself has made me disconnect from caring about the characters- and that's Poisonous.

the story makes its Stakes either too big or too small. its either about a characters self doubts or its about finding a way to escape a reality by killing it's god. but theres very little in-between, or focuses on how one relates to the other. its hard to care when the stakes are too high (unrelateable), and its hard to care when theyre too low for too long (character feels whiny and passive).

its best done in the Annes story- her personal turmoil over her incredibly bizarre circumstances leading to resentment and action- killing her father-god- were united and flowed into each other. usually an escalation of stakes is accompanied by development of character. but beyond the Annes, i feel like there are no characters who have developed. theres no proactivity that feels like itll actually change things. its just characters that have been acted upon (not-entertaining). (and i get that time loop bullshit makes that point hard but its also sapping the enjoyment of reading the overall story itself and needs to be addressed.)

at this point i feel like the plot has become concerned with it's own telling, which is arguably what's actually happening- everything is being written because timeloop bullshit demands it and everyone caught inside is powerless to struggle against it, including the audience- but im not finding it entertaining anymore. I want to care about the characters more, but the text is reinforcing it's own disassociation-themes to the point where its getting unfun to read.

to be fair- i did read up to where i am over the course of two days, which is a Lot to take in at once. even on release this wasnt a story thats binge-friendly and im probably bouncing off of it's weirdness because i havent had time to digest it. However it's fascinating in its setups- in the questions it asks and the puzzles of the world, its just failing to provide characters that match. and maybe it has, and has just been presented deliberately obtusely and i missed the point- (which is an in-text theme! But also I can't explore that theme if the audience's participation is lost so it still is a Bad Thing!) which i would also argue is a Problem, not a success.

anyway anyway Flower that Bloomed Nowhere slaps and its mystery structure serves as a great device to convey the otherwise Intricate worldbuilding (and i like how said worldbuilding is usually introduced only as it has context to a Motive or as a Clue because it makes said worldbuilding feel meaningful which is nice) and im excited to see what happens next hope you have a good day byeeeee

hm- well, uh, i think a pretty good chunk of AN's readership is in my general orbit on here, so you're gonna get roughly the same effect as putting it in the tag, but-

i mean, the thing with AN is that... the main thing you're down on it for is sort of the whole game it's playing. first it introduces a concept in a bizarre, flowery, obfuscatory way that's playing around with language- and then it does that again, and again, from various angles, with different sorts of obfuscation, so you slowly get a picture of the concept through a sort of blind-men-and-the-elephant process. that's the fun of it, that's the game, doing a deep dive on the presentational tomfoolery to try and figure out what's going on before it just tells you.

that's what Grant's there for- he says "what the fuck are you talking about, explain it better", after it's already gone a few rounds of deliberately not explaining it clearly, and given you a chance to chew on it and try and piece it together for yourself. he's the answer key at the end of the puzzle, the way the story signposts "okay, so by this point you should pretty much Get this concept".

if you're just blasting through it to try to absorb the content as directly as possible, i can see the way the story presents itself kind of working against you, yeah. it's not trying to be obtuse for no reason- it's being obtuse because the process of grappling with the obtuse is the main selling point. if you don't like doing that, if it just bugs you when the story won't just say what it wants to say, yeah, it's not gonna be a good fit.

i kind of agree that some of the character arcs seem a little weak- like, i'm not entirely positive what Cordelia's doing here? what the point of her is? and- oh, god, don't tell Cordelia i said that, that's exactly what the poor thing doesn't need to hear.

but i think that's a product of... like, these aren't all supposed to be protagonists of a story. they're primarily lenses into the story, different perspectives on what's happening. they're part of the mechanics of the game, sources of new narration to use as part of the puzzle. grant doesn't really do anything, in-story, sure- but he's extremely active in nailing down concepts.

"the plot has become concerned with it's own telling"- yep. that's what it's doing. it's kind of always been doing that. personally, i like that!

i might have a bias here due to... having been following it on a serial basis for years since chapter 1? like, that's a format that lends itself well to the way the story wants to be engaged with, the slow and meticulous reading that leaves lots of time for contemplation. i'm not sure if i can evaluate how well that all works archivally- whether this is just a matter of differing preferences in how to consume fiction, or if structurally it's somehow encouraging a shallower reading that it doesn't reward as much.

[thisonequack]

While I've seen plenty of criticisms of Outlast for ableism/stigmatizing mental illness (because your enemies are murder-happy asylum inmates), I honestly beg to differ—at least for the most part. For one thing, only a handful of inmates actually attack you. Most of the other patients there are either in shock or just trying to lay low and stay alive through all the chaos going on around them. Even the more proactive of the non-combatant characters, such as the pyro you encounter in the kitchen, are just trying to get out—and their desperation is made to be pretty relatable. Even the boss characters like Chris Walker and Eddie Gluskin were victims of the asylum. For crying out loud, the Whistleblower DLC opens with Eddie getting dragged into the morphogenic engine kicking and screaming and begging for help—it's what solidifies Waylon Park's determination to take down Murkoff. Even when you find Eddie's files later on and see that, yes, he was already a murderer before he wound up in Mount Massive, that also comes with notes about the sexual abuse he experienced as a child and his denial of it. It doesn't excuse his actions—of course it doesn't—but it shows that he didn't become the way he is from nothing. Furthermore, the entire Mount Massive arc focuses so heavily on the theme of abuse of power. The patients are enduring horrific experimentation at the hands of people like Blair and Trager, and that is what sets up the rest of the story. The people running the show are the catalysts for all hell breaking loose—not the patients, who are instead victims of a system that is exploiting them by pushing them past their mental and physical limits, and has no qualms about treating them as replaceable test subjects. They are already sick people thrust into terrifying circumstances. Some of them were already dangerous to begin with, but most of them were not. They were all in a place that was supposed to help them cope with their conditions and rehabilitate, but instead were exploited and had their issues exacerbated by being traumatized further, and that's part of what makes Outlast terrifying.  So yeah, the portrayal of mentally ill people in Outlast isn't phenomenal, sure, but it goes beyond making all the patients out to be horrible monsters. Most of them are just trying to stay out of all the awful shit going on and stay alive without completely breaking down. The games still makes you feel for those people after you see how desperate and terrified a lot of them are, due mainly because of the abuses they have suffered from the people who were supposed to help them.

I think you sent this to the wrong blog. But you are so right. I do love media that gives you a monster or a killer an enemy of some sort, but it turns out that the real antagonist is someone else. (Like the movie NOPE. Love that film so much. Do give it a watch if a Sci-Fi Horror Western sounds interesting.) In Outlast you have the patients of Mount Massive but really it's Murkoff using human experimentation on vulnerable people who they believe wouldn't be missed. It's been years since I was last into Outlast, but wasn't Billy's Mom trying to contact him? (After looking it up it turns out that she sold him to Murkoff. He didn't suffer from any disorders. Just another victim to another person's greed like everyone else in Mount Massive.) The portrayal of people with mental disabilities isn't great tbh. You do have so many people who look over the whole experimentation making everyone worse than how they were when they first entered the asylum. But I'm not sure if that's just because people aren't the brightest or if it's because Outlast wasn't obvious enough when saying, "Hey! The people who are trying to kill you weren't always like this! They are victims of the Morphogenic Engine! Which fucks with their vulnerable heads even more!" Once again, it's been a long while since I was into Outlast, so I don't remember how obvious it was when it comes to the story. Overall I feel like the patients shouldn't be taken as representation of what mental illness looks like. Yeah you have the non hostile patients scattered about, but the average player isn't gonna focus on them as people. They end up feel like set pieces in a room to bring up the creep factor of what the hell is going on. Which is kinda gross for me to say, but how often do people think about the rooms of people sitting quietly staring at a static screen? They're too busy focusing on the big guys chasing you down trying to gut you. And saying that the game is ableist for making mentally ill people look like killers. Even though it's Murkoff who's the true villain for abusing these people until they're stuck in a delusional and hostile state. Anyway I feel like I'm making the same point over and over again. Money and greed are the enemies. Not the patients of Mount Massive. Me and my homies hate capitalizing off of the vulnerable. Watch NOPE.

[sharktoraptor]

Ok so I wrote an essay about why IDW Sonic is a Good and Consistently Written Character, Actually.

It clocks in at just under 3k words, oops. This was written purely for my own catharsis and entertainment but I’d be curious to see if anyone has any Thoughts about my takes, and also I’m pretty happy with the essay and I wanna show it off.

(Obligatory disclaimer that I’m happy to discuss but I’m not inviting Discourse or attempting to attack anyone’s opinions personally with this essay, and this is largely my interpretation of the character from canon materials. It’s Sonic the Hedgehog, guys. Be chill.)

Essay under the cut, link to the Google doc in a reblog (so tumblr doesn’t eat this post), if that’s easier to read! My blog theme is ancient so it probably is lol.

I'm not going to bother finding my sources for these just know I've read the IDW comics several times at this point so I have a pretty good handle on the canon and most of my quotes should be mostly verbatim. If I get really into it I might go get screenshots but we'll see (AN: Well I did get really into it but I’m just getting issue numbers and the verbatim quotes in this edit, not screenshots. AN again: Ok I did end up getting one screenshot). I'm only referencing the currently released 51 IDW issues here, not Archie or games!verse Sonic or anything else, just IDW and inferences that can be made from IDW since that's the universe we're talking about. Okay, here's why IDW Sonic Is A Good And Consistent Character, Actually.

(From here on out if I say "Sonic" I mean IDW Sonic specifically unless otherwise stated.)

One of the writers and artists for IDW, Evan Stanley, once described Sonic as "reactive, not proactive" on her blog (source). That’s in no way “official” and I’m not claiming it to be, but I am stealing it as a descriptor because I think it really fits with the fact that Sonic is very much a chaotic neutral character. He's definitely good-aligned, of course, and he cares about the general wellbeing of people, but his entire moral compass is centered on the idea of every creature having the right to the freedom to do whatever they want, as long as they aren't using that freedom to take freedom from other people (pretty much outlined verbatim in #51 during his fight with Surge)- his personal judgment has very little to do with it, at least from his perspective. That's always been the case in pretty much all Sonic canons. Eggman wants to enslave the world and take everything under his control, which means no one would have freedom, and that is why Sonic fights him, not simply because Eggman's evil and Sonic's good. When Eggman’s lying low, he’s not causing problems, and maybe he won’t cause more, so Sonic’s not going to hunt him down and take any kind of preventative action. It’s up to Eggman to decide to stir the pot again.

Sonic's choices aren't "good" on a "good vs. evil" dichotomy, they're "correct" on Sonic's personal moral compass.

So let's take a look at IDW and the consistency of Sonic's character!

The first IDW arc doesn't have a ton to discuss just because it's a lot of action in a relatively short time, but the important part relevant to this essay has to do with Mr. Tinker. Mr Tinker is the result of Eggman's apparent extreme physical trauma after his last defeat, which caused him to lose his memories and assume the persona of a kindly, wood-working repairman living in a relatively remote village. Sonic first confirms that the memory loss is legit (#5), and then stops Shadow from outright killing Mr. Tinker (#6), because Mr. Tinker is flat out not Eggman. There is no suggestion that without Starline's direct and continued interference Mr. Tinker, who is effectively a brand new character completely unrelated to Eggman, ever would have become Eggman again. So on Sonic's moral compass, killing or imprisoning Mr. Tinker, who is innocent, is completely off the table, and he maintains that despite the fact that it would have been less effort on his part to leave Mr. Tinker to the Chaotix or Shadow. He has nothing to gain or lose by protecting Mr. Tinker other than sticking to his moral guns, something he'd do again with much greater risk with the Zeti way later. 

Starline, meanwhile, is the one who takes Mr. Tinker and hypnotizes/tortures him back into becoming Dr. Eggman- it's not Mr. Tinker's fault, nor the fault of any factor Sonic and co. could have foreseen or prevented. At this point in canon, Starline is not known to literally anyone in the main cast. Eggman’s return is 100% Starline's fault, and of Starline’s free will (#11-12).��

Another part of what brings Dr. Eggman back is seeing Metal Sonic, who was defeated and then deweaponized and released by Sonic and Tails (#12). This shows what I'd say is honestly a fantastic example of the morality thing again- releasing Metal Sonic, neutralized or not, is almost inarguably a terrible idea. He’s never been anything but an enemy, but he’s also never had the opportunity to really choose. Sonic wants Metal, now that Eggman is completely out of the picture as far as they're aware, to have the chance to make his own choices, whether or not those choices come back around to bite Sonic later. That's what it always boils down to.

(Personally I don't think that without Starline's interference the appearance of Metal Sonic would be enough on its own to bring Eggman back, but we're talking just Sonic characterization in canon so what is and isn't his fault doesn't really matter. He gets blamed and feels guilt for it plenty later- that's not bad writing, it's a character flaw.)

Now let's go onto the Metal Virus arc. Obviously Sonic has nothing to do with being at fault for the Virus itself, that's all Eggman, and Eggman existing at all is the fault of Starline. The first major thing Sonic does in this arc (besides beating up Rough and Tumble again) is go and encounter Starline with Silver. In which Starline very, very nearly succeeds in literally blowing them both up (#14).

After that, there's not a ton of stuff I can see in the Metal Virus arc that I can even really understand being considered "out of character,” though granted I’ve only been paying close attention to the clamor surrounding the last few issues so I don’t know what people disagree with about that period. But like… the Metal Virus arc is Sonic at his lowest. Yeah, he’s not going to be his “normal” (for what we’ve seen up to here) self. He's perpetually exhausted, being blamed outright (by Vector and Espio) and indirectly (by himself and others talking around it) for the whole pandemic because he spared Mr. Tinker and Metal, watching his friends become zombots and not being able to help, etc. There's several instances here with Sonic pretty much acknowledging the consequences but being firm in his opinion that he still did the right thing with Mr. Tinker based on his own morals- because going back to the beginning, Sonic isn't a "good vs. evil" character. He does what’s “right,” not what’s “good” by other people’s standards, only his own. He's consistent to himself and that's what matters to him, and he’ll take whatever consequences come of that.

Not to say Sonic isn't a "good guy"- he is, by the nature of the franchise. But like, he's pretty always had the "individualism over all else" thing going on and that's nothing new. So I don't understand why his "constant bad choices" are criticized so harshly by readers as the fault of the writers, when they're really the natural faults of the character. That's the point. Characters have flaws, it makes them interesting. I don’t know the extent of what the writers are and aren’t allowed to do with him- no one but the writers and Sega do, but frankly Sonic doesn’t need to change from this standpoint because it’s a core character trait, it’s part of who he is. The interesting part comes from other characters, like Surge, interacting with that part of him.

…Back to going chronologically, moving on.

Still in the Metal Virus arc, on Angel Island we get a couple of interesting Sonic interactions, with Eggman and Starline. First we have them arriving via the Warp Topaz portal, to which Sonic says "[Eggman]’s going to give us a straight answer. Or I'll infect him myself" (#25). This is some extrapolation, but since they don't have a way of reversing zombotification at this point in the story, and definitely won’t if they lose Eggman’s knowledge, that can be interpreted as pretty much the equivalent of a death threat. Killing someone is Sonic's last resort, it's the ultimate robbing of freedom, but I don't think he's ever been totally above it, not when pushed like this. The Metal Virus has zombotified most of the population, Eggman and Starline are responsible and beyond redemption at this point.

They can’t do anything about Eggman here because they need him, so they come up with a plan, and Eggman rips the Warp Topaz off of Starline and Metal Sonic slam dunks him through a portal to whereabouts unknown. We don't actually see where Starline ends up or what happens to him between the Metal Virus arc and Bad Guys, but it's still pretty brutal, and with Angel Island being the last safe place it's pretty much implied he is not going to have a good time, wherever he lands. Tails goes "Are we okay with this…?" to which Sonic replies: "The guy brought Eggman to his old self and tried to blow me and Silver up. Yeah. We're okay with this" (#25).

"Yeah. We're okay with this" Does not to me sound like someone who wantonly forgives every single enemy and lets them go to do more atrocities. Starline did everything 100% of his own free will, unlike Metal Sonic, who was programmed by Eggman to do Bad. Sonic has absolutely no reason to have any mercy for Starline, or Eggman at this point. But Sonic has never shown straight up mercy for Eggman, only for Mr. Tinker, who was not Eggman. Just rehashing that for emphasis.

Idk what the arcs are actually called from here on out but I'm skipping ahead to the Zeti.

The Zeti, lead by Zavok (who Starline freed, by the way, in part of his revenge scheme on Eggman in Bad Guys), trick the Restoration into sending Sonic and the Chaotix away and go to Restoration HQ to try to kill everyone. And we get my favorite "Sonic's Fucking Pissed" panels ever, with the sonic booms and everything, when he finds out and zooms back to HQ to stop them (#42). It's a pretty brutal fight that Sonic is definitely losing (Zavok literally says "I want all of the Restoration to listen as I peel him into pieces" about Sonic), and they only manage to scrape a win because of Tails' Zeti-disabling devices (#43). Like, the Zeti were fully going to murder everyone in that building if they hadn’t been stopped. 

They could kill the Zeti, or send them back to prison (though I presume Sonic was still in Blaze's world when they made the original decision to send Zavok to prison in the first place- not shown in canon so it's not being considered here, just musing), but instead Sonic loads them up on a rocket and has them sent back to Lost Hex, with the Zeti Zappers automatically deactivating upon arrival. Even after all they’ve just done. Zavok outright questions this, and we get this exchange, which I will go get the screencaps for because I like it a lot (#44):

[ID: A conversation between Sonic and Zavok from IDW #44.

Zavok: I will make you regret showing restraint. This moment of compassion will be repaid tenfold in violence and misery.

Sonic: You want to cause more trouble? Fine. Waste your time. I'll kick your butt every time.

Sonic: But I'm not going to sacrifice my principles out of fear.

Zavok: Heh. I can respect that.

This conversation is paired with various panels of characters blaming Sonic for the consequences of sparing Mr. Tinker and Metal Sonic, followed by a close-up of Sonic with a bitter expression, and then a snarky/defiant one as he speaks to Zavok. End ID]

Sonic knows that his choices have had terrible consequences, but he's not going to stop following what he believes just because it sometimes ends up bad. If he locked up everyone who wronged him and the world we wouldn't have Knuckles, Shadow, Gemerl, etc (we can't speak for IDW Knuckles but because Shadow and Gemerl's backstories are alluded to being in line with game canon, I think we can safely make that assumption. The point with Shadow and Gemerl stands nonetheless). Sonic says so to Shadow, way back in the first arc of the comics: "Heh, you tried to destroy me in the past too, remember? You even tried to destroy an entire planet. So- what? You want me to take you out with Eggman? After all, if he can't be forgiven, can you?" (#6)

 Sonic is perfectly aware that the situation was partially his fault (though it was really Starline at the core of it all), he owns that! That consistency is why I will defend this furiously as a character flaw and not a writing flaw. He's not having the consequences of his actions waved off- he definitely paid for them in the Metal Virus. He's just... not a character that changes. That's his moral compass and he's sticking to it. It's a flaw and it's really a pretty solid and interesting one. The intrigue, again, comes from the positive and negative consequences of that flaw and other characters interacting with it.

Skipping over a handful of plotlines because most of the stuff in the 40s didn't focus on Sonic so much. Starline does appear and try to kidnap Tails and drop a mountain on a ski resort, though, so there’s that. I have a bit more to say on the current arc though.

I think it's really cute how totally willing everyone is, including Sonic, to accept the reprogramed Badniks as not threats. That's not super relevant to the discussion but I do like it. He's still willing to bust up Motobud when it turns on them but he does give the reprogrammed ones, at least, the benefit of the doubt. 

(All respect to Belle but. Don't even the reprogrammed Badniks still have like... animals inside them? Honestly that's my biggest issue with the current arc's writing is not addressing that. Maybe it’ll come up later.)

Surge, though. A lot of people had major issues with the way Sonic interacted with Surge. I honestly think the whole thing is really interesting from a character perspective, though. All of the following from or about #50.

You have Surge, who has been created for the sole purpose of destroying Sonic, attempting to follow through on that purpose, though she's decided to do so for different reasons than Starline intended. She's trying to destroy Sonic for not taking out his enemies when he had the chance and in doing so perpetuating this endless cycle of Heroes vs. Villains, and she intends to in turn destroy all of his allies and Eggman and his lot and end all of it.

And you have Sonic, for whom this is kind of just a slightly weirder than normal Tuesday.

So Sonic does what he does with every single character who's come to him like this before- he defeats her to a point where they can talk, explains his decisions to her and his individualistic ideals/morals, and offers her a chance to completely wipe the slate clean, start over, and give her the opportunity to make better choices.

The key here is that Surge's choices are "wrong" in Sonic's eyes because she's trying to kill people and destroy the world, and as I said earlier, that's the most definitive way to take someone's freedom away. It has nothing to do with who she is or how she was made. So when she continues to make that bad choice and keeps attacking him after he's explained this to her, what else is he supposed to do? He gave her the same chance he gave Metal, except instead of leaving to fight another day, Surge just kept punching. The "ten second truce so I can pull you up" panel makes me think he would have kept trying, too. He had to beat her, slow down her momentum, if he wanted any chance of calming her down and making her see things his way, and that ended up having apparently tragic consequences because she refused, ironically, to slow down and meet him in the middle.

It's all Starline's fault, though. This isn't an essay about Starline but this is why to me, Sonic's haha funny "big oof" line makes total in-character sense to me. Starline fucked everything up from the very start and has done literally nothing but make choices to try and subjugate, traumatize, and kill people. Why should Sonic have a single ounce of pity for that guy? To us, Starline might be an interesting character- to Sonic, he's a despicable man who made nothing but terrible choices the entire way. He brought back Eggman, tried to kill Sonic and Silver, tried to kidnap Tails and dropped an avalanche on a bunch of innocent people as a distraction, and created Surge and Kit- and that’s just the stuff that Sonic knows about. Probably if Sonic had had him at his mercy he wouldn't have let him die given the option, but no, he's not about to slow down and mourn the loss of life or reminisce on that dude. "Big oof" pretty well sums up the "yeah, well, sucks to suck" that Sonic has every right and character reason to be feeling at the news of Starline's death. 

Plus, it's really funny.

In conclusion, IDW Sonic is a really interesting and good character and character flaws impacting a story in a negative way do not a bad writing team make. He's been consistently chaotic neutral and stuck to his moral code (individualism > good vs. evil) the entire run of the comic so far and I'm excited to see where it goes.

[throwaninkpot]

This may be nothing, but MAG176 had me thinking. As they travel, Jon seems to be taking on the attitude of each Fear as he passes through its domain. Outside of the "statements", I mean.

Take this episode. The Hunt manifests as predators tracking down their prey, and here Jon is downright cunning as he hunts Basira. He lays multiple traps, using himself and Martin as bait for Trevor and using Trevor as bait for Basira. And he does all of this without communicating to Martin what is going on.

MARTIN

(passive-aggressiveness kicking in) No, Jon, that’s the goal. What I want is the plan, the steps in between that need us to be hunted through the woods. I’m flying blind here, I’m –

ARCHIVIST

(exhaling) Yeah. I’m sorry. I do know what I’m doing.

MARTIN

How nice for you, but I don’t, unless you tell me!

This particular domain of The Hunt feeds off the fear of being betrayed by those you trust most. Good intentions and practical reasons aside, keeping Martin in the dark about his plan treads very closely to that fear.

Let's go back to MAG174. The Vast deals with open space and heights, yes, but slao the fear of insignifigance in the grand scheme of things. And Jon looks at his revenge tour in the big picture of it and comes to the conclusion that it accomplishes nothing.

ARCHIVIST

I know. I, I, I know, alright? But well – That’s kind of the problem; I have all this – power and I want to use it to try to help, but I – [...] I’ve done so much damage, and – and anything that might help to balance that is – But killing other Avatars is, is not – I, I don’t think it makes anything better. I think it just makes me worse.

MARTIN

You’re removing evil from the world.

ARCHIVIST

I, I’m not though, am I? The tenement fire is still burning. The mortal garden is growing wild. The carousel –

Jon chooses not to smite Simon because his death simply wouldn't change anything on any level that matters to the victims of his domain. Beyond that, this is the moment when Jon finally admits (at leadt out loud) that they haven't helped anyone with the "Kill Bill" quest. In the Fearpocalypse, change can't be affected on such a small scale, and there's only some vague idea that looking above the avatars and their domains to the Entities themselves is the only way to fix anything.

Go back further to MAG169. The Desolation feeds on suffering and pain, and Jon purposefully guides him and Martin towards the burning building so that he can smite Jude.

ARCHIVIST

I - Oh, right: I want revenge on Jude Perry. I want to… smite her. Make her feel what - (sigh) What all her victims felt.

And then when he actually confronts Jude:

ARCHIVIST

(not in the mood for games) I’d have thought that was a mindset you would appreciate. Now, feel it. All the terror and pain you’ve inflicted.

It doesn't come through just reading a transcript of the scene, but there's a certain detachef relishment in Jon's voice as he calls down all the pain of The Desolation's victims on Jude Perry.

And lastly, MAG168. The End isn't about being proactive or taking action, but instead it waits and lets death happen in its own time. Fitting that Jon becomes very live and let die during that episode.

ARCHIVIST

I feel badly for those who exist in his domain, o-of course, I do, but - At least their suffering will be over. Eventually.

I can’t destroy everyone I cross paths with, it - No. If Oliver will not seek me out, then I will leave him be.

It's a very passive attitude, much like we've seen in previous statements of The End.

This is Jon experiencing each domain as the Archivist. It's another side of his vents that make him the mouthpiece for the "statements" of a few of the victims trapped inside.

It's a subtle theme, and there are plenty of unconnected explanations for all of this. Jon had to be cunning because Basira was too clever to be caught, Jon admits he hasn't fixed anything because he has been worn down by each domain, Jon wanted to cause Jude pain because she caused him pain and helped turn him into a tool for ending the world, Jon didn't want to kill Oliver because he empathized with him. These could all be coincidences, but it's interesting that its happened at least four times, maybe more but these were the episodes that stuck out to me.

[slidewhistlebj]

With all the Wandavision hype right now, I have a X-men AU for the batfam that I wanna talk about

So in this story Gotham serves more as a mutant hub amplifying the pro and anti mutant struggles in the city than an anti-nonhuman zone, each member of the family is a meta matching one in the Magneto family from the X-men and MCU

Bruce - Magneto: Obviously as the head of the family this connection makes sense, they’re both heavily traumatized and working from that place of loss to try to make the world a better place for others. This version of them, Bruce isn’t such an overt criminal (Magneto typically commits a war crime to wake up in the morning) and he sticks with the more night time themes of Batman, he works very distantly with the Justice League typically protecting Gotham and only appearing to others for world-ending threats. His mutant rights work is as Bruce, playing political and social games that someone like him has access to via possessing an insane amount of money to change laws

Dick - Scarlet Witch: I think that Dick is strong as hell but tends to be underrated on the combat side of things in order to represent his emotional skills so Scarlet Witch is the perfect comparison (also don’t think about an angsty version of the young justice Wally West dying story with a wandavison-esque reality rewrite oof) In this story, Dick and the rest are adopted like canon but their powers all match Magnetos canon children and family. Dick grew up with Bruce, exploring his powers and limits until he became a full-fledged meta “hero” (His methods don’t always have the moral high ground but he is on the side of good) There is no robin role, but Bruce occasionally takes them out for training (the older and more control they have, the more he takes them out) Dick is the most outwardly social of the Gotham supers and he works in Bludhaven as a gymnast / gym trainer (ACAB dude, no Dick cop rights on this blog) After Jason’s death, Dick killed the Joker and began taking a more proactive role in superhero work in order to protect other kids

Jason - Polaris: Jason pushes so hard against being similar to Bruce because they are have so much of the same emotional problems / they’re so similar to one another, matching mutant abilities is the best exploration of that as Jason struggles with his identity around Bruce and his legacy as well as who he wants to be as an individual (Also her color is green, the connection to the pits is a perfect cherry on top) Jason was adopted by Bruce, they grew really close and bonded over their abilities (like the legacy of the Batman mantle, but Magneto since powers are def crucial to passing that on) Jason’s death and revival go the same as canon, but now he wears the pit colors as a sign of what happened to him and to separate himself from Bruce (Black with red is how I see Batman and Magnetos designs combining) Jason’s overly aggressive fighting tactics are against anti-mutant groups, fighting the criminals in the ways Bruce often can’t during the daytime social games he plays to change things on the legal level

Tim - Quicksilver: I’m not as sure with how Tim fits in this AU but I can see Quicksilver being a strong match as the X-man universe has set up Quicksilver and Magneto as estranged and making the choice to try to be family and support each other which is similar to Tim’s own story. Quicksilver is also light-hearted and snarky and I think Tim is a 17 year old who wants to do kick flips in the boardroom so that’s a great match. In this AU, the Drakes are pretty big anti-mutant adovocates so as Tim grew into his powers he made sure to hide them, only letting loose to follow Magneto Bruce and his family as they go out and fight criminals. Eventually he finds out who they are and when Jason dies he begins spending more time with them as support for Bruce and a safe enviornment to be himself. The Drakes aren’t dead in this AU just disconnected and travelling often so Tim has to be careful about being seen with the Wayne’s meta or day time personalities as both are very pro-mutants. His relationship with Jason and Damian is distinctly different as they’ve attacked him but he had the abilities to get away easily (The Time in a Bottle scene but it’s just Jason trying to kick Tim’s ass) and it became a more playful game / rivalry relatively quickly

Damian - Billy / Wiccan: much like canon, Damian is Bruce’s kid with Talia, raised in the league with intense training and expectations of his abilities (Powerful + Metal Control are practically his mantra), as his abilities present similarly to Dicks Ras and Talia decide that he needs to go to Gotham to learn with his father and Dick about how to control himself. Tension between Dick as his dad and Bruce as his biological father are heightened by the power similarities between Damian & Dick and Bruce & Jason and as Damian grows more powerful, needing advice and help only Dick can give him. I feel like there are so many good feels that could come from Damian eventually breaking out of his legacy under Talia and Bruce and following in Dicks steps as a (powerful as fuck) independent hero

I’m not specifically sure how the other bat kids fit into this AU but Magneto has a lot of grandkids and there are plenty of interesting way that they could fit into the story as even just talented humans who serve as medics and similar to change some of the anti-human sentiments Magneto has (Steph being the first human to join the family could stand for why she has such a rocky + independant relationship from Bruce) This has been bouncing around my head since Wandavision started and I wanted to see what other people thought about it :D

[wendigordon-and-anna]

Welcome to Blackwood Pines Sanatorium and Spa Resort! + About The Blog and Mun

Welcome! This RP blog has been in the works for,,, well over a year now based on how I accidentally reblogged an aesthetic post over a year ago. Oops. But with the short and sweet Gordon-centric one-shot intro I am finally ready to do something with it! The Inpatient still holds my brain deep in its grasp and I’m willing and able after a turbulent year to finally do something about it. Hence expressing my love for it in roleplay form!

Meet The Twins

Though never featured simultaneously, both Gordon and Anna are integral parts of the player’s focus during their stay at the sanatorium, this (and just my love and intrigue of them as characters in their own right) is why I’ve made this joint account to put myself in their shoes and grow their stories.

My personal headcannon despite their quite separate existences, is that they are fraternal twins, with Gordon being the older sibling by minutes. Their personalities and quotes are just different enough for them not to just be copy-pasted characters of different genders, but also similar enough to imply closeness. One could say they are spouses, and that is also super valid, just not the way I choose to roleplay them. Particularly since I headcannon Gordon as gay.

Most of the basis I have for this blog is centered around a timeline where Gordon was trapped in the cell with the inpatient player character and became the one infected by the curse. Where it diverges, though, is that Anna was also one of the survivors and she was able to come back in time to save him from full transformation. This leaves him partly mutilated, nearly invincible, and stuck with the wendigo spirit inside his head lest it be released to torment or doom another person. Hence the name: Wendigordon. (Clever, right?)

However, that’s merely a skeleton of my own creation and not some strict canon. So whether these two are trapped on a mountain in 1952, in high school/college with the other Until Dawn kids, or in some wild, dragon-filled fantasy setting with who knows what to face, I am excited for it all! Maybe they’re interacting with one of their old colleagues before the events of the game? Maybe there’s a timeline where Gordon was killed by the inpatient and now Anna has to deal with her grief and learn to forgive? I don’t know, the possibilities are endless!

Whether you are a seasoned roleplayer with tons of OCs, a UD roleplayer who’s been dying for more threads as the community has shrunk, or someone with zero experience who’s been wanting to roleplay as an Inpatient character I welcome you one and all!

About the Blog:

I tag each post with their related character, whether it be threads of aesthetic posts I make/reblog to make things a tad more organized. Anybody I have a thread with will also be tagged in the threads we share as well.

Understanding that the UD fandom is much smaller than it used to be and the need for these two characters is small, I’m very malleable about AUs and backstories. The bios I have in mind for both the characters are merely defaults and basic skeletons for them to start with!

Communication is key! If I as a mun, or these muses as characters, do something you are uncomfortable with, please do not hesitate to shoot me a message and I will either explain why such a thing happened, or I’ll learn how to handle this blog better! This also goes for certain things that may need to be tagged. I will try to be proactive for triggers and such, but if there is something I do not cover, please tell me.

All NSFW will be tagged accordingly, and there will be zero smut threads with minors. There are so many non-sexual/non-romantic thread ideas and starters so I look forward to roleplaying with as many people as possible no matter their age - but for any smut themed thread, you will need to be 18+.

This is a multi-ship account, and most separate relationships will be treated as if they are in separate universes.

I do have an Inpatient OC who may be referenced in tagging or aesthetics, but he will be largely uninvolved unless someone wishes for me to include him as a character I play. 

Disclaimer of course that my use of the W word is in no way meant to be offensive as I understand its sacredness and the discomfort it can give to people. Seeing as the game and its whole theme rests upon this creature and the lore surrounding it, however, it is very hard to avoid. My apologies. ♥ 

About The Mun:

I have plenty of years of RP experience, with preference for paragraph-style roleplay. I’m far from a fancy roleplay blogger and I don’t do anything strenuous with fonts or icons - I’m just here for fun and to hone my writing. I can be very nervous when talking to someone new, but getting to know my roleplay partners and plotting stuff is one of my favorite parts of the hobby, so please don’t be shy! (If you’re shy and I’m shy then who’s flying the plane, you know??!!)

[princeasimdiya12]

That anon is an asshole. Why do you hate Shuichi? I think he fits the theme of truth and lies, but his character development is a complete joke as he has zero struggles after his waifu dead. He never once second guess his actions in class trials and doesn’t even think of major consequences (killing the de facto prime minister and not noticing a serial killer is amoung them). His stans over analyze his actions and try to justify everything he does.

They were quite a jerkhole. I can imagine that most stans would be protective of their favorite characters if anyone were to express disapproval.

And thank you for giving me the opportunity to express my personal feelings on the matter anon. And those are some interesting reasons to dislike him but I have some other reasons.

My answers will be hidden under the “Read More” because they’re long answers. But these are my thoughts and reasons for why I hate Shuichi Saihara.

Reason 1: The Protagonist Switch was Lackluster

Right off the bat, I personally dislike that we were promised a unique and compelling protagonist like Kaede only to switch her with a generic insecure protagonist like Saihara. The use of the protag switch isn’t a bad plot twist and it can be clever, it’s just that the result of switching Kaede for someone like Saihara left a bad taste in my mouth.

I loved Kaede because she was unique as a DR protagonist. Along with having a colorful design and talent, she was assertive, confident and willing to take charge. She was actively involved in the story by stepping up as the group’s de facto leader and trying to motivate them. She was also flawed in the sense that she was quick to butt heads with others and she didn’t completely trust others or practice her own beliefs of trusting in friends. And personally, I’m not even upset that she tried to kill someone. It’s still considered something different for a DR protagonist to do, especially if it was for the greater good. 

But when we get Saihara, he continues the trend of being a generic sad boy who feels insecure about his talents and wants to be stronger. Most of his screentime is spent moping about his problems and how he doesn’t feel good enough. He doesn’t have the same presence as Kaede and just stays in the background while the rest of the cast move the story as much as they can.

In all honesty, if they had introduced Saihara as the new protagonist, or at least make it so that his predecessor wasn’t as compelling as Kaede, then I wouldn’t have been too upset. At the very least I wouldn’t have gotten my hopes up for a protagonist who was actually different compared to the past protags.

Reason 2: Waifus In Refrigerators 

For those that don’t know, fridging is the concept of (brutally) killing off a fictional female character in order to create an emotional impact for her male love interest and his character development.

Kaede’s death and how it impacted Saihara is textbook fridging.

I strongly detest fridging since it robs a female character of her agency and role in the story. It treats her as a tool meant to motivate her male love interest to either avenge her death or grow as a person. Kaede’s death along with her final wish is what pushes Saihara to try and beat the killing game. And from then on, Saihara will take the moment to reflect on Kaede’s tragic end and how he inspired him with her kindness. Kaede loses her identity as a complex leader who was willing to commit murder for a greater good. Everyone just remembers her as Saihara’s innocent dead love interest who inspired him to keep on fighting. It’s also worse in the 6th case when it’s revealed that Tsumugi took advantage of Kaede’s trap to kill Amami which further pushes Kaede into the image of an innocent angel that did no wrong.

And it’s also frustrating since this isn’t the only time that the Danganronpa series has killed off its female characters in order to develop their male love interests.

In SDR2, Peko dies trying to save Fuyuhiko which in turn motivates him to stop acting like a jerkhole and be more cooperative with the group.

In DR3 Future Side, Chisa is the first victim of the killing game which pushes her boyfriend Munakata to become a more direct antagonist towards Naegi for protecting the Remnants.

In the same series, Kyoko allows herself to be poisoned in order to protect Naegi. It’s through her death that Naegi decides to confront Munakata in a final showdown. And while Kyoko does get brought back to life at the end of the show, it should be noted that she was only brought back just to be part of Naegi’s happy ending package. She loses her agency and is brought back just to be his newly revived girlfriend.

In DR3 Despair Side, Chiaki is brutally killed in order for her classmates to become Remnants of Despair. But it’s her final heartwrenching moments with Izuru that inspire emotion inside of him aswell as deciding to turn against Junko.

So Kaede being killed for Saihara’s development is the fifth fridging example in this series and it sucks that Kodaka and his crew rely on this trope throughout Danganronpa.

Reason 3: The Narrative Forces You To Like Him

Another issue that I found irritating about Saihara is how everyone began praising him.

Just after the first case, everyone constantly praises and coddles Saihara for being such a great detective and for growing so much. For me, that praise feels undeserving since he barely did anything to earn it. Thinking back to each of the past protagonists, they didn’t have everyone’s respect in the beginning. They each had to work had and face adversity throughout their stories in order to earn their praise and respect. Even Kaede, who despite being a confident leader, had to deal with people frequently judging her leadership and actions. So I find it questionable that Saihara already earned everyone’s respect after solving only one case. 

By having all the characters praise Saihara, the narrative pushes you to accept him as the new protagonist and recognize how awesome it is to have him. But for me, it just makes me dislike him even more. I refuse to like something just because everyone else does and it won’t take away my admiration/love for Kaede.

It’s also jarring since anytime a character has the spotlight, it somehow has to involve Saihara.

“Wow Himiko! You’re much more expressive now than before. Just like you Saihara!”

“Man, it sounds like you had a harsh life growing up Harumaki. Just like you and your detective work, eh Shuichi?”

The narrative can’t help but force Saihara to be around and praised by the people around him despite the spotlight not being on him in that given moment. 

Reason 4: He’s Not a Good Detective

While Saihara’s role as a detective may fit the theme of Truth and Lies, that doesn’t mean he was good at the job. My issue being that he was unproductive and biased for the role.

While he did set up that trap in Chapter 1 to catch the mastermind, he doesn’t do anything as proactive in the later chapters. He spent most if not all of his time going to training with Kaito and moping about his problems. It goes on like this for 4 chapters and it takes Kiibo threatening to blow up the school before he actually gets to work on solving the mystery of the killing game. As a detective, you’d think he would put more effort into actually solving the mysteries of the killing game or try to put some thought on who the mastermind could be.

The biased part comes with how he interacts with others and how he’s more critical of people based on how they treat him. Saihar has a tendency to be very judgmental towards the students and doesn’t look at the entire picture. 

He writes off Ouma as the embodiment of lies and doesn’t bother trying to learn more about him or his true motivations. 

And on the opposite side, he openly praises his friends while blatantly ignoring the problematic things they’d done throughout the story. 

He considers Kaede to be an inspirational role model despite how she betrayed him and wanted to commit murder behind his back.

He worships Kaito and treats him as a perfect hero despite never noticing his ongoing illness or the fact that Kaito didn’t trust his friends enough to reveal his own insecurities.

He deems Maki a reliable friend despite the fact that she went behind his and everyone’s back in order to kill Ouma and was willing to gamble everyone else’s lives if it meant taking revenge on the supreme leader.

Shouldn’t a detective be more persistent when presented with a mystery while also acknowledging all the sides (both good and bad) of a given person? If his personal bias was treated as a flaw by the narrative, then that would actually give his character significant depth. Especially if he worked on managing his biases and learning to acknowledge all the sides. But it isn’t treated as a bad problem.

For me, the fact that he’s supposed to be a detective who “grows stronger” and is so good at his job despite all of this really rubs me the wrong way. If anything, it shows me that he’s really bad at the job.

Also, I would like to bring up that I don’t count him investigating the murder cases as being a good detective. Why? Because Hajime and his class in SDR2 were able to solve their class trials without a detective figure. Being a detective, or having one, doesn’t make solving the class trials any easier.

Reason 5: An Unnecessary Cliche

Personally, I really see no reason for why Saihara’s character needed to be the generic insecure protagonist for this particular installment of Danganronpa. It’s the same cliche storyline featured in a grand majority of anime and light novels. It’s repetitive and irritating knowing that so many stories focus primarily on a sad generic boy who doesn’t feel good enough and wants to be stronger. 

It’s also worth mentioning that in comparison, the past protagonists at least had narrative reasons for why they were generic and insecure in the first place.

For Naegi, he was the first protagonist of the installment and his normalcy was meant to contrast the extremely talented and radically different students he’d be involved with. As the game progresses, he uses his normalness to bond with the students and rally them together in the name of hope.

For Hajime, he’s treated as a deconstruction of the generic insecure protagonist. It’s because his feelings of inferiority and longing to be special that he decides to accept Hope’s Peak’s experimentation and become Izuru Kamakura: an incredibly talented super-being who lost his humanity.

For Komaru, she was regarded as an ordinary girl that had the potential to lead others which is recognized by the adult resistance and Monaca. So throughout the game, both sides were pushing her into becoming either the next symbol of Hope like Naegi or next symbol of despair like Junko. But she ultimately decides to be neither of them and wants to be her own person.

There were reasons for why each of these protagonists were considered generic and insecure as it contributed to the narratives. But for Saihara, there’s really no solid reason for why he’s the only normal one of the V3 cast. And everyone is more than happy to praise him as the best one out of the cast despite doing so little to earn it. At most, Tsumugi reveals that Saihara being an insecure boy who grew stronger thanks to his friends was for the sake of a fictional storyline. Obviously it was meant to mentally break him but it honestly feels like a weak reason to keep the trend of a generic insecure sad boy. Not to mention there are other reasons for why I believe this doesn’t work.

The setup for the “Danganronpa is a fictional TV show” twist didn’t have enough buildup so it doesn’t make the cliche that strong.

Saihara still continues the role of the insecure boy who grows strong and saves the day. While Tsumugi states that his role was written for him, Saihara still continues the tropes of his archetype by saving the day. It’s ultimately because of him that he’s able to convince his friends and the viewing audience to give up on Danganronpa. It was the writer’s way of having their cake and eating it.

If the reveal was meant to be a shot at how it’s become a cliche, then why not live up to it? If they wanted to show how Danganronpa was running for too long or how it’s cliches were getting old, then why not commit to those ideas? Instead of having everyone praise and worship Saihara, make them question if they’re really going to depend on a generic guy to save them. Instead  of being just a cute quirk, actually show the negative sides of Saihara’s anxiety and depression and how they would hinder him from participating in trial discussions. Maybe even have Kaito lose his temper at Saihara because of how much he mopes around.

There’s so many ways they could have gone with deconstructing Saihara’s stereotype or showcasing how it’s become old and stale. So it feels disappointing that they never went that far.

And another reason for why I dislike his characterization is because it brings to mind Ryota Mitarai from the DR3 anime. Just like Saihara, Mitarai is a main character who’s described as generic, insecure and spends most of his time whining about how useless he is. Despite this, he manages to survive the killing game since the other more unique characters are killed or move the events of the story. I personally found Mitarai to be a frustrating character. I detest characters who constantly whine about how useless or miserable they are as a means of getting sympathy from the audience. So having to deal with Saihara who more or less shares multiple characteristics with Mitarai felt very exhausting.

Conclusion

So those would be my reasons for why I hate/strongly dislike Saihara. I can admit that alot of these reasons weren’t so much because of Saihara or his actions but how he was written throughout the story. He still did alot of things I didn’t like don’t get me wrong, but alot of fault can be traced to the writers and how they decided to write him and Kaede’s characters. I still find his archetype as a generic insecure boy who mopes around to be an unappealing archetype but I’m sure most of his fans would suggest otherwise.

If you’ve managed to read everything here, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to do so. I can’t imagine many people would want to read a critical post targeted towards one of the most beloved characters in Danganronpa. So thank you for doing so.

And as always, if you agree or disagree with anything I’ve written, you’re more than welcome to reblog this with your comments. I’m always up for friendly discussions. 

[kendrixtermina]

You know there’s something very interesting in how Edelgard alone gets all this flack for not finding out anything.

Because she’s far from being particularly ignorant - She’s solidly number two, and Claude exceeds her only after her death in his route meaning that while she lived she knew more than anyone.

Claude only gets further by interrogating Rhea directly, and because he prioritizes information over anything which has moral ambiguities of its own. Also, he’s the smartest guy in the game. Not being smarter than the designated smart guy is not being dumb, it’s just “not being a mary sue”

I haven’t seen anyone level such accusations at Seteth or Dimitri though they are substantially more ignorant... Dimitri doesn’t find out anything and Seteth has no idea about wtf his sister’s been up to, so he basically defends the church not knowing of its flaws. (Why do you think Rhea says in her supports that she “can’t trust anyone” not even her brother? Cause she hasn’t told him.)

I don’t mean to bash either of them, though - One of the big themes in the game is perspective, everyone’s acting on what they know, no single route ever tells you everything or fully understands the premises the others are acting on.

Edelgard looks antagonistic ‘cause you don’t have the full picture (though I would argue that Azume Moon and especially Verdant Wind eventually let on what her real position was. )  - and she’s not the only one, after all she doesn’t know all this crap with her mother, Claude’s plans, or that Flayn and Seteth are innocent.

Somehow ppl understand that this is part of the plot with the other characters, but not with Edelgard. She seems to be held to a higher standard.

Highlights include

Fair world hypothesis reasoning that, if she didn’t find out everything then clearly she didn’t try... as if trying always implied success she did. She marched in a troupe of sholars and everything

Saying she blindly believed what she got from her ancestors - she DID research further it’s not her fault the records were all purged, and she clearly doesn’t trust or idealize her ancestors seeing as she considers them sellout. Judging by that one quote Rhea has on the tailteen plains, ol’ Wilhelm might not actually have been as bad as Edelgard fears he was.

ppl claiming she believed crap she got for the agarthans for no reason other than it’s convenient though there is no textual evidence for it, she tells you where her info is from, it’s her ancestors and that research she’s having ppl do, She’s ignoring what  Thales said about Nemesis being a thief

Saying that she started the war “on false information” ie because of the Nemesis thing which is NOT why she did it. It’s rather the other way around - in absense of further information she’s willing to give Rhea’s past enemies the benefit of the doubt because she knows what Rhea’s like in her own time

Wether you agree with her or not she considers what she’s doing revolting against a tyranical ruler (Rhea), and flat out says at one point that she doesn’t care what Rheas reasons or backstory is... it’s Rhea’s present tyranny that matters not 1000 years ago. She incorrectly speculates that Nemesis might’ve been good but she’s not per se attached to that idea and given more info she would probably reconsider given that she is shown to take and consider constructive criticism in almost every support chain... about Nemesis, that is, I doubt her opinion on Rhea would change at all, and knowing the crests came from a fucked up origin in the first place would probably not surprise her all that much/only confirm her worldview.

There’s something sad here, because once upon a time Rhea probably actually was heroic or at least neutral and just trying to stop the villain who killed her family, but she’s become so warped that some ppl can’t image that she was every anything other than a tyrant. 

By contrast in Azure Moon a great deal is made of Dimitri getting his father’s old lance and it’s this big meaningful moment when he gets it, he’s got a lot of sweet nerdy excitement concerning the legends about his ancestors and was raised pretty religiously, I’d say he’d be a whole lot more shaken to find out that the ten elites were basically murderous savages.

It probably comes down to the bias of proactive vs. reactive actions as well as hindsight bias.

Thing is... of course you should get a good picture of what’s going on before you act to avoid making things worse. But this is not all or nothing, and in reality you will almost never have 100% completeness or 100% certainty and expecting it will just leave you paralysed.

You’ll never be 100% sure that you have the truth but you still have to act, and you have to deal. Edelgard was at 90%.  

[blackasmidnightcats]

Continued discussion about Sophie's "redemption arc"

Original post from @agathasarmy

@agathasarmy I've moved this to a new post cause I have a lot of feelings and still want to continue this discussion and I hope you don't mind

So anyways...

(this wouldve been also a great way to introduce the concept of legacies, especially with the past vs. present. vs. future theme and it would also parallel tedros’ storyline as they’re both dealing with the fallout of carrying their predecessor’s glory)

YESSSS

All of them have big shoes to fill because of the people who've nurtured and believed in them

One thing I really hated in the camelot years was the lack of mourning that Agatha and Sophie did for Callis and Lady Lesso respectively.

That is the kind of anguish that I was looking for. Just them being children and missing their parent/parental figure and wishing that they could still be someone's child who could look out for them and motivate them when they needed.

Like Sophie remembering that Lady Lesso believed in her the way that Sophie could never do and Agatha remembering how her mother would have wanted her daughter to live out her life with with love and adventure.

Let's not even get with Tedros (that's a whole other meta in itself)

so far all i got was lesso and hester being the best examples of it, but what i also got from them was that Evil wasnt being cruel but serving as the balance to Good like ok???? what exactly does that entail??

Exactly, I'm really frustrated about this because as much as Soman has tried to make us understand that Good and Evil are equals, he has never actually shown us how equal they can be since all the Evil figures that we have are usually helping Good.

I'm really pissed that the Coven's quest involve them finding a new School Master when they have absolutely no need to do that. They should be doing their own stuff instead. It's the one thing I shame Prof Dovey for.

that was what I expected the series would be: Tedros and Agatha as Good because Good always stands stronger together, and Sophie as Evil because Evil is best alone, but not lonely

I stand behind your point about "Alone but not Lonely" quote because if that does not describe Sophie's biggest problem than I don't know what does. She can have all the fans that she wants and build the whole School for Evil in her tribute and pretend that she's a strong independent woman who doesn't need a man but she'll still feel the loneliness seep through if she doesn't have a closure with her insecurities and envy

instead Soman subverted our expectations in the worst way possible since GoT S8 (dont @ me)

I will stand by you with the hate for GoT s8. That was a trainwreck so badly done it imploded on itself. Recently, writers that have big productions have been having a hard time gracefully ending their stories

EXACTLY I JUST KNOW SOMAN’S GONNA BRUSH IT OFF OR BARELY MENTION IT WHEN THIS KIND OF DIALOGUE IS MORE IMPORTANT TO THE MESSAGE OF THE STORY THAN SOMAN RANDOMLY INSERTING DOVEY AS TEDROS’ GODMOTHER OR REAPER BEING KING FOR PLOT CONVENIENCE

I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL. I WILL NOT STOP BEING SO FREAKING BITTER ABOUT IT.

Soman was off with a good start on that one. I would have been more interested with Sophie trying to handle her narcissistic desires vs her need to actually be a decent Dean to all the new students just like how Lady Lesso was for her. Her understanding how to be Evil and be herself would have been a nice read.

if soman had to bring back a trope from the last era, it would be the discussion of dichotomies i.e. Good vs. Evil, instead of the evil lover trope cos aint nobody got the time for that

YESSS

It's still technically the school for GOOD AND EVIL SERIES even if we go to a new era I was hoping that Soman would still have these as the roots but NOOOO.

His obsession with Sophie obsessing over boys that obsess over her is a strong one apparently.

like at this point it’ just really blatantly obvious how much Soman favors Sophie and I wouldnt be that bothered if he didnt sacrifice the plot or the other characters’ brain cells to go along with it cos to this day I refuse to believe that people really would just accept Rhian like that after reading The Tale of Sophie and Agatha

EXCATLY. I HONESTLY COULD NOT UNDERSTAND SOME OF THE DECISIONS OF THE OTHER CHARACTERS ABOUT THIS.

Like did no one still understand that not everything is what it seems?!

I am baffled with how easy they trusted a comeplete stranger over Agatha who has proven over and over and over again that she fights for the good of EVERYONE and is perfecrly willing to sacrifice her happiness for theirs.

Like at this point I'm thinking that her fairy tale propably does not do justice for everything that she's been through cause if the other people of the Woods read her story the way we did, there would be no doubt that we would stand behind Agatha for a lifetime

like cmon people we went through this already?? a random hot stranger coming out of nowhere??? ITS THE RED FLAG

In defense with them, (and I am saying this very, very off handedly) Rhian did come around saving everyone's asses and was a pretty decent guy (NOT).

WHAT I AM REALLY SURPISED ABOUT IS THAT THEY WANT A PIECE OF HIM AND HOW EASILY THEY TRUSTED HIM WITH EVERYTHING

I THOUGHT THE POINT OF THIS SERIES WAS TO SHOW THAT ROMANCE WASN’T THE ONLY HIGHEST MANIFESTATION OF LOVE, BUT A LOVE BETWEEN FAMILY OR A LOVE FOR ONE’S SELF WAS JUST AS IMPORTANT????

One of my biggest beefs with Soman's writing. He highlights romance too much compared to platonic and self love. I want a moment with Sophie like the one in TLEA where Agatha was getting stressed about letting Sophie and Tedros grow closer and Soman managed to pretty realistically portray that; Agatha was being insecure and possessive and jealous but she let herself reflect on her actions. She made peace with it and faced it with bravery even though it really hurts her. Because she understood that she would never have closure for this if she didn't let it happen.

AGGIE IS THE BEST. I LOVE HER

Why the hell can't Soman write something similar like this for Sophie.

WHY SOMAN PUTTING THIS AMATONORMATIVE BS IN THIS STORY AGAIN LIKE WE ARE TIRED

In fairness, Sophie getting into ANOTHER romantic relationship I will PASS SO HARD.

But for everyone else that deserves some romantic love (TAGATHA PLS) I will accept crawling

also I like your ideas on what could’ve happened instead, with Rhian being more proactive towards Tedros and Agatha instead of Sophie - it would play well into the Camelot myths and themes that I was really expecting in the new era

I KNOW RIGHT?!?!?!

If Soman could only just get over his Sophie Obsession, then he would understand that Tedros was the perfect target for Rhian's manipulations and Sophie was the perfect target for the downfall.

I have no idea how the hell did Rhian think (but apparently it worked because soman plot) that seducing Sophie would win him the love of the Woods.

plus it wouldve been a chance for Sophie to actively help them instead of tearing them apart like in the last 3 books?? like she’s kinda doing that rn but it would’ve been nice if she didn’t have a hand in stealing their happiness like she’s always done too

Well...for me she doesn't seem like she's tearing them apart anymore but I stand with your point about her stealing their happiness.

This could have been good, good character development for her. Her realizing that she keeps making tagatha miserable and stealing what belongs to them and the complexity that comes with her inner struggle between her envy vs love for her best friends.

PLUS CHADDICK DESERVED TO LIVE INSTEAD OF BEING KILLED FOR PLOT CONVENIENCE LITERALLY IT’S THE WORST DEATH IN THE SERIES NOT COS IT’S SAD BUT COS IT DOESNT MAKE SENSE AND MAKES FOR TERRIBLE WRITING IMHO

"NOT COS IT'S SAD BUT BECAUSE IT DOESNT MAKE SENSE"

SCREAM IT A BIT LOUDER SO SOMAN CAN HEAR IT AT THE BACK!!!!

Soman, I will never forgive you for doing this to this boy.

You could have made Tedros and Chaddick have a falling out. I mean the last time that they interacted was during AWWP and Chaddick treated Tedros as crap. I know that all of us headcanon that these two are each other's best mates but they've barely had significant interactions for me to consider that a case.

They'd be so pressured about not followong the legacy of Arthur and Lance that a small problem could propably tear these two apart.

also, on another point, you would think Sophie would be more sympathetic to Tedros situation given that they’re both leading populations, essentially

plus Sophie learned to understand Tedros’ mind better in awwp??? where the hell did that relationship development went (even if she was Filip at the time)??

I am honestly more suprised at how viciously Tedros seems to treat her.

Like it wasn't that long after TLEA that Tedros was perfectly willing to let Sophie stay in Camelot and even asked her to visit but come his coronation (which was like less than a day after) he keeps on proclaiming about how happy he is with her out his life and in aCoT his distrust for her was off the roof.

Then there is the Handbook ordeal with Sophie just completely roasting Tedros like what happend to the two of you?

I don't even understand Soman's decision about this. It doesn't even affect the actual storyline in anyway. It's just Sophie and Tedros at each other's throats.

Tedros has been treated the crappiest out of the main trio (let’s be honest) as if the game was built to oppose him, meanwhile Sophie gets major Soman privilege and is given the role ONCE AGAIN that could change the game

THIS

It's the reason why I can't even read AWWP anymore. It hurts too much to have to read at how badly the other characters treat him. Just reading the first line of that book gets me anxious.

And PREACH THAT SOPHIE HAS MAJOR SOMAN PRIVILEGES.

This is why I was actually suprised that Soman shared that he planned on killing Sophie off at the end of TLEA but we'll never how that story went

like if the School Years was for Sophie to realize and accept her Evilness, couldnt Soman have decided to give Tedros and Agatha the deciding roles this time around given that, you know, it’s called the CAMELOT YEARS ERA???

Honestly, I just want Tedros to have the most agency out of all the characters. Like make his decisions actually matter to the plot. Make him the center of the plot and revolve Rhian's plans around him instead of being against him cause that's exactly how Agatha's role in the school years era was for Rafal.

The basic formula goes like this;

Sophie important to the Rafal's/Rhian's/Japeth's/hell even Evelyn Sader's plan

Agatha/Tedros are in the way of that plan so they have to go

Agatha/Tedros saves Sophie's ass

Sophie making the big decision

Like didn't Soman say that he didn't want to be that repetitive writer? That's why he changed the ending of AWWP because it was too similar to the first book?

WTF SOMAN?

she’s still out here wanting someone to look at her the tedros looks at agatha (honestly big mood right there) but I wish this didn’t have to be her main conflict

This is actually why I'm not that mad that Sophie fell for Rhian. Because at the end of the day Sophie will be Sophie.

But I agree I kinda hoped that she wouldn't be as guilible

the girl is smart and knows her worth so I can’t really understand why she decided to get ENGAGED to the next person (Hort obviously cant count cos plot) who tells her she looks pretty???

NOW THIS. THIS IS MY BEEF WITH SOPHIE.

I can understand why she'd date him but MARRIAGE?! That was going a little bit too far.

You'd think after her engagement with Rafal that she'd be TRAUMATIZE for the next one.

And honestly it would have been hella funny if she did feel this way. Imagine Rhian nearly getting all that he needed but Sophie just straight up leaves him on the stage cause she's still got issues with it.

Would have been my favorite scene

And Hort, poor boy, he needs character development of his own. I'm not his fan honestly and currently, he's not winning me over.

ALSO THE FACT THAT SHE ENDS UP BEING CONSIDERED FOR THE ROLE OF QUEEN OF CAMELOT INFURIATES ME SO MUCH COS WE WENT THROUGH THAT SHIT IN TLEA???? WHY ARE WE BRINGING THIS UP AGAIN????

THIS. THIS IS MY BEEF WITH SOMAN

Can he not understand that she would be crap as QUEEN?

A parallel I noticed with Rhian and Sophie is that they both completely remodeled their respective castles in their image. Not even considering anyone else. And they both treat their faculty as crap.

Kinda tells us that she really would be crap as queen.

At least the Camelot citizens had enough braincells not to fall for this crap

Every other kingdom in the Woods though. They better be budgeting gold to Tedros and Agatha once they're back on the throne.

(and im so so tired of Sophie stealing Agatha’s Ever After from her, indirectly or not, like cant she just be happy for her best friend and move the plot in some way other than this???)

I really do believe envy is only one of the things that Sophie needs to sort out. The fact that she admitted at the end of TLEA that she does, in fact, feel envious that Agatha gets to be a queen and her little episode in the Ever Never Roundtable about how she's the one with the official title of queen and that Agatha isn't even a princess says a lot.

I wouldn't have minded if Sophie had a slight blackout and just lost it and saying mean things about Agatha but instantly regreting it because no matter what, deep down in the foundations of her soul, she loves Agatha with everything that she has. And is she has the be in a constant battle with herself about this fact then she's willing to keep on fighting. That would have been satisfying to read.

I mean just imagine if Sophie was there when Agatha was leading her army and Hester mentions that Agatha is Queen in the School, in Camelot, or anywhere elsse in the Woods. They would follow her. Willingly.

Sophie would have had a panic attack.

This girl needs to learn that she can't force people to be loyal and follow her by making every physical reminder of how amazing she is but instead she needs to lead and make some sacrifices of her own because she's doing these sacrifices in the benefit of Evil and its future instead of herself.

Sophie appreciating people?? Not only remembering them when she needs something from them??? Like @ soman im not asking her to be the next Mother Theresa but I’ll take this character development pls and thank u

I am all in for Sophie appreciating everyone. If she can't do it for other people, then she better do it for Evil.

[emeraldtawny]

Why I Love The 7 of Hearts

...I said I would do it. And now that it has officially been one month since his route release, the official banner for spoilers is now lifted! That being said, I’ll put a disclaimer now: I will be talking about key aspects and spoilers from Kyle’s route. Be warned.

Alright, now onto my thesis. Title: Why Kyle Ash Is My Favourite Otome Husband To Date - An Incredibly Biased Review, by Tawny ^w^

Part 1: Before his route

Before we talk about the actual route itself, let me explain to you guys why this man already had my heart before even getting to date him. I’ll be honest; when the game first came out, he was already in my top 3 but he was not the best boi (that went to Fenrir and stayed like that for a bit). That is, until I played through Lancelot’s route. Being able to get more interactions with Kyle gave me more insight into the kind of person he is, and I honestly liked what I saw. He condemned Lancelot for throwing his life away needlessly without concern for his safety (important note to come back to) and made it clear that his affiliation with the Red Army didn’t mean anything when there are lives on the line (another impotant point to revisit). I honestly respected that about him and sure enough, he snuck his way into top spot and has stayed there since. And if I’m being real, his route has completely solidified that. He ain’t moving. Ever.

Personal Rambling #1

Okay, now comes the fun part hehehe >:3

With the question “did you enjoy Kyle’s route?”, is there an option for “everything” and also “yes yes yes, holy shit yes”? Because, Kyle’s route is a big fat YES out of 10 for me, and I say that as unbiasedly as possible. I noticed that there didn’t seem to be any dev notes released before Kyle’s route dropped (my poor boi getting shafted :c), so allow me to give you my own variation:

Kyle

Recommended if you like: Yukimura (brusque yet sweet, kind of an idiot but means well) and Mitsunari (oblivious genius)

Sexy…7

Drama…7

Romance…9

Dev Notes: For a man so smart, he’s awfully clueless when it comes to you. This weirdly approachable doctor may lack tact, but that doesn’t stop the blood pressures rising and the hearts racing - both yours and his. Get ready for an angst road bump at part 20 (as well as his Dramatic Ending), but rest assured that the doctor is here to see you now.

When I say he’s a combo of Yuki and Mitsunari, I’m not kidding. He’s basically Yuki without the full-on tsun tendencies (he has a few, but you could call it more embarrassment and awkwardness compared to being a tsundere) and then a touch of Mitsunari’s infuriating obliviousness and bam, you got Kyle!

I won’t give a synopsis of the route, since you’ve all likely read it or know most of the story (why on earth are you reading this far in otherwise?) so allow me to share with you, my personal favourite chapters/parts of his route!

Chapter 7 - the first (and definitely not last) instance of a blushing Kyle in his natural habitat. Bonus for glasses uwu

Chapter 14 - the introduction of Goo, the new best pet in Cradle (sorry Chutney). Legit, I recorded that entire section where Kyle and MC are naming Goo and I was just squeeing like a deranged lunatic because I loved it so much like bdjxbgdkfnxfkd

Chapter 24 (His POV) - DRUNK KYLE POV. Of course, he’s still cognitive to have proper thoughts, it wasn’t Masamune levels of drunkenness. But...jealous Kyle. That right there is a rarity but WOW, it’s a treat ;3

Towards the end of the route when MC finds Kyle’s confession written on his freaking hand (Kyle you doof) and just...him burying his amused smile into the crook of his elbow when she says she likes someone…..HNNNNNGGGGGGG yes

Part 2: Character Development

This man has such strong convictions to his profession that it’s honestly admirable. He may only have one pillar to stand on, but that pillar is strong and immovable. I’m of course talking about this line: “I absolutely despise people who are ready to throw away their lives”. Sound familiar at all? Remind you of...a certain Red King? Honestly though, this commitment to his work as a doctor when he seems to do nothing else except drink himself into a stupor most nights (if not every night) is awe-inspiring, and I’m not the only one who thinks so.

The MC in Kyle’s route is my new favourite. I love how the romance she develops for Kyle starts off as simple admiration, just her wanting to follow in his footsteps and prove useful to people without provoking the war occurring around her. She’s grounded and has a clear purpose, which is refreshing compared to other iterations of her being more meek and more better categorised as a “damsel in distress”. Don’t get me wrong, I”m not criticising those types of MCs. It’s just nice to see a driven MC with a clear goal and a motive for why she wants to do the things she does, enough for her to stay longer than the allotted month (something NONE OF THE OTHER ROUTES DO, HELL YEAH KYLE!). She actively chose to stay in Cradle - even when her ticket home was right in front of her - because she wanted to help Kyle save lives. It’s refreshing. And it makes for some great interactions between her and Kyle, especially later in the route when they’re more comfortable with each other. Which leads me onto my next point…

It felt like a real relationship. The slow growth and blooming of feelings, the cute interactions they’d share (every time Kyle stroked her hair or bopped her on the head, my heart exploded into confetti), and how awkward they both were with each other. God, if you guys could have seen me reading his route with my dumb dopey grin and squeaking like a lovesick children’s toy every 10 seconds...I was a mess gielkdsnglkd.

I love how they let us see into Kyle’s world. It may be a simple outlook on life, but you can’t fault the man. His strong conviction to save as many lives as he can because he feels it’s what he was made to do, and his importance on smiling and presenting a calm, friendly image of himself as he treats his patients (remember the line “People are like mirrors.”. It’s important.). He’s a very “my pace” kind of person, and it was fun to just kind of...relax a bit. Sure, war preparations were happening but wait one moment, please. I need to educate Jonah on what is needed for a balanced nutritious breakfast. It was refreshing to see a route that was surprisingly chill for most of it until the ending crescendo, and I welcomed it.

Alright….angst time. All of the little hints we were getting, like his role of the 7 of Hearts not being “set in stone”, had me squinting at the screen like “boi, what you hiding?”. When we got to drinking with Kyle, Oliver and Blanc and the conversation of Kyle having a brother came up, I was like “....oh. This is gonna be baaad.”. And this wasn’t even including Colin (because when a character gets named, you know they’re important.). But…..Chapter 20. It actually came out of left field, sucker-punched me in the kidney, cracked my heart and left me crying as I’m just reading this whole thing unfolding. Colin’s heartbroken cries, Kyle’s unmoving unresponsive form as he lets Colin punch him, the symbolism and connection of both Kyle and Colin having lost an older brother because of the war. I’m….. ;~; aaaaaa. And then in the Avatar Challenge following the angst, MC throws the “people are like mirrors” line back at him to get him to break down a bit, to let some emotion out, and I was just a blubbering mess at this point. The route is generous enough to give you a floof and mild spice break, but then if you choose the Dramatic Ending…..you…..you visit...his brother’s grave...and the waterworks begin again.

Continuing on from the point above, this means Kyle also has connections with The Day That Went Dark, along with Fenrir and more importantly, Ray. From the way it was described in Kyle’s route, he himself doesn’t know for certain if Ray used magic or not. He only knows that Ray was there when shit went down. So even after his brother passed from the tragedy, Kyle held no animosity or desire for revenge against Ray; very fitting for his character. This route made me realise just how similar Kyle and Ray are: they’re both very determined in their ways to keep the peace and they both hold strong to their views of freedom and honesty (Ray and Kyle respectively). And you can tell that Kyle doesn’t hold it against Ray for whatever happened on The Day That Went Dark.

I would honestly love to see a scenario of the two of them sitting down together in a room and just awkwardly yet honestly expressing all of their pent-up emotions about that whole ordeal (angst writers, if you’re reading this...only if you want to ofc ^w^).

Personal Rambling #2: Gushing Edition

So those were my structured notes, but now let me indulge you on my messy bullet points that I made throughout reading his route. A lot of these are pointless to character building and things I just thought were cute and needed attention drawn to sooo….ye ^w^

Like the rest of the Red Army, Kyle was born into a family that carries the mantle of 7 of hearts. All of them doctors.

Cute theme of beds??? (his bday story and them sleeping in the same room)

“When he wasn’t talking, he’s actually quite attractive.” (wow, r00d)

His palm notes are work and other things related (and he doesn’t always remember why he wrote it down bgrkdgn)

Not a sweet tooth (dammit Kyle, that’s your only downfall :c)

Easily embarrassed despite his earnest and straightforward mannerisms

Doesn’t dote on MC and teaches her what he can

His importance on smiling and presenting a calm, friendly image of himself as he treats his patients (“People are like mirrors.” - ch 8)

Head pats. Lots of head pats

Awkward sweet love (kill me it’s too adorable)

Edgar’s silent envy yet sweet support of their romance (this boi istg…)

Super proactive MC (she’s my new fave, seriously I love her)

Lots of touching (head pats, forehead bonks), he doesn’t know what personal space is (and I love it)

His pig is the cutest thing in the entire world, I need 20

Really good with kids…...yes.

“I absolutely despise people who are ready to throw away their lives” (incredibly strong convictions - doesn’t have many, but the ones he does have he is incredibly dedicated to)

Stays longer than the allotted month (FUCK YES)

His brother’s death strengthened his convictions to be able to handle being an army doctor (direct and honest, no bs about sacrificing your life etc etc)

The “People are like mirrors” line is tearing my fucking heart apart (makes sense in chapter 20 avatar challenge)

The angst…..his brother...and Colin….I’m rdfkgndkjfnxclk ;-;

His realisation of love….and his confession….lord, IM DROWNING IN UWUS

Saving Amon despite him murdering many innocent people, a big decision that could have changed the tide for the future, but he stuck with his beliefs

MC’s insistence that Kyle doesn’t like her that way, and Kyle’s inability to realise it’s love (help me it’s so fucking cute I’m dying)

Whether intentional or not, he’s good at diverting the attention away from him when he wants it off him (maybe MC just assumes he’s an idiot?? lmao)

So his glasses are for sentimental reasons (but does he need them???) and his alcohol drinking habits are from his father (not a coping mechanism)

Incredibly kind...but not good at showing it (helping MC distract herself by giving her work(?))

MC’s obsession with Kyle’s eyes and collarbone (same sis, SAME) and Kyle’s obsession with her hair (fsekfbksfnjweksdgn kd,nAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA)

Conclusion

Overall, Kyle’s route is very solid. It may not add much to the overarching lore of Cradle (aside from another victim in The Day That Went Dark), but the route was still adorable, enjoyable and incredibly sweet. I had no moments where I felt bored throughout his route (then again, that’s likely the bias talking) and the balance between cute floof, tear-jerking angst and then hot hot spice (that he FULLY deserves, mind you) came together into a wonderful experience that left my heart full and sad when it all ended.

My final message to you all: Kyle Ash is the sweetest, most adorkable nerd that has ever graced my presence and I hope that even a tiny portion of my love for him rubs off on you, just so you can see how amazing this boi is. Thank you for your time and for listening to my ramblings gesgnsk ^^;;

Bonus: my two favourite screenshots from his route

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 6.9

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time as we got even deeper into the fiction reveals of trial 6, I tried probably too hard to justify the auditionees’ nonsensical ideas of how any of this even works, those assholes were nonetheless not the same people as our friends in here in any meaningful way, Tsumugi’s claim that she scripted Maki’s feelings for Kaito was total bullshit but still hit Maki right in the issues about being her own person, her similarly bullshit claim that Kaede and Kaito were never real hit Shuichi right in his own dependency issues, the audience completely stopped being even remotely believable human beings in their reactions to this, and Shuichi broke down and needs to reboot.

While we’re waiting for that to happen, we’ll have to make do with Keebo.

BAD END

…

Keebo:  “Is this the end? Please tell me. I’m asking you.”

I suppose we’re meant to believe that the Bad End message is something that Keebo sees? Which seems kind of odd. Or maybe it’s just something that the in-universe audience were shown through Keebo’s eyes.

But it also kind of reads as more of an out-universe thing, since we the players are the only ones playing this as an actual game that could potentially have bad endings. This kind of gives this the effect that Keebo is also speaking to us, the out-universe audience, and that we’ve been his inner voice this whole time. Which doesn’t actually make sense – if we’ve been anyone’s inner voice it’s been Shuichi’s, but that’s obviously not really an in-universe thing.

This is probably for the sake of trying to fool us into feeling like the in-universe audience is a force for good, just like Keebo is going to still naively believe for a while. Not sure how convincing that is after a proportion of the audience last time had absolutely zero empathy with Shuichi’s despair, though.

Keebo:  “Whenever I was in trouble, my inner voice would always guide me. That guidance is what brought me here. I don’t believe that’s a mistake.”

His inner voice’s guidance has done fuck all to bring him here. He’s here because he was lucky enough that nobody happened to try to murder him, and sensible enough not to kill anyone himself. I would like to give Keebo enough credit to think that he didn’t need his inner voice to talk him out of murder (…well, at least until this chapter, apparently). All the voice has done is make his actions a bit more proactive and optimistic, but that has meaningfully affected basically nothing of note that’s happened here.

Save this situation?

-      No

Remedy this situation?

-      Yes

It is perhaps a little confusing that you’re meant to say no to the first prompt, because one might have already realised that it’s not necessarily a literal save-the-game prompt and is instead talking about saving Keebo’s friends. This probably works better in Japanese, in which the first word is the English loanword “save”, which I don’t think has any meanings other than the save-the-game meaning, and then it changes to an actual Japanese word for save/rescue/ etc.

Keebo:  “My inner voice is telling me I need to… remedy this situation.”

Apparently this is very much not the same part of the audience that was just mindlessly and sadistically laughing about Shuichi’s despair last time. Since Keebo’s inner voice is an audience survey, it must be a majority that wants this instead, which means we have to assume that those comments we saw before were deliberately cherry-picked to be all the despair-loving ones.

At least this does a decent job of actually making the in-universe audience feel like the good guys, then, since they don’t want Shuichi and friends to be in despair. It makes them seem that way for now, at least.

Oh hey, here’s the music from Danganronpa 1 that was essentially Makoto’s “objection” theme. Of course that’s showing up in this game now. Keebo is basically supposed to be playing Makoto’s role, after all. (Emphasis on supposed.)

Keebo:  “We can’t give up. No matter what, hope is always within reach. We must keep our heads high and search for hope, even in the deepest despair.”

Aaaaaand it’s meaningless buzzword time! You can’t search for hope itself. The act of searching is hope, but only if you’re searching for something that will meaningfully, tangibly make your situation better!

Shuichi:  “Hope…?”

I wonder if Shuichi’s realising that what Keebo’s saying doesn’t mean anything and is wondering why he’s throwing this word around so eagerly for no reason. Nothing is going to give Shuichi hope without actually addressing the reason he’s in despair, encouraging him to believe that he’s not all just fictional and his friends weren’t just empty lies. Without that, Keebo is just spouting meaningless platitudes that won’t solve a thing.

Keebo:  “…You said so yourself – this killing game is the Ultimate Real Fiction. If this is both real and fiction, then logically it can’t all be fiction.”

This is an actually useful argument he’s making, at least. But he really shouldn’t need to use logical deduction from Tsumugi’s words to realise that obviously they’re still real in the sense that they exist and have physical bodies and will really die – and therefore that all of that applied to their friends who died, too.

Tsumugi:  “Oh, your inner voice? That’s the voice of the outside world.”

It should be a huge risk for her to be telling him this. Logically this should immediately lead to Keebo refusing to listen to anything his inner voice is saying to him. He won’t for a long while, though, because he’s apparently kind of an idiot. Or just very, very brainwashed. Or a bit of both.

Tsumugi:  “I know cuz I wrote your plotline, too.”

That’s not a “plotline”, that’s just a neat audience-participation feature. The actual plotline that Keebo would follow based on that is entirely up to the audience.

Tsumugi:  “You’re the audience surrogate.”

This might partly explain why Keebo’s character has always been rather vaguely defined and they never did much with all the interesting potential of him being a robot who’s trying his hardest to learn to be human: because he’s supposed to be a blank-slate self-insert for the in-universe audience to see themselves as. They’re obviously not going to be able to relate his thing of being a robot. Makoto and Hajime were both pretty ordinary guys without anything too overly distinctive about them because they were basically audience surrogates, too.

(And Kaede and Shuichi have far more distinct personalities and characters because they’re not audience surrogates like the previous two games’ protagonists were.)

“Hifumi”:  “That function exists to keep the audience entertained.”

Yes, because clearly they’d all have been super bored by this whole killing game if they hadn’t been giving Keebo meaningless nudges to be a little more optimistic from time to time. Nothing else about this game has been remotely entertaining without him, right!?

The hints earlier that Danganronpa might have been getting stale and on its last legs by now do support the idea that this is something they did to try and keep people interested, but Tsumugi is still giving herself way too much credit here.

“Chihiro”:  “It’s two-way communication that lets you participate in the program from home.”

Oh, boy, is this the line that’s supposed to justify how Shuichi will ultimately change the outside world by yelling at them a bunch – because he does it through Keebo’s nebulous “communication” feature? Yeah, because that’s totally so different from them simply listening to him because they’re watching this trial.

Tsumugi:  “The outside world has been watching from your eyes the whole time! It lets them feel like they’re really a part of the Danganronpa world!”

This cannot be the whole truth. For one thing, if they’ve only ever seen through Keebo’s eyes, then outside of trials, the audience must have been really, really bored? All of the interesting character interactions – all of the watching Shuichi grow and develop which was in-universely meant to be one of the main plotlines of this story – happened nowhere near Keebo. The audience should have been poking Keebo to hang out with more people, maybe get closer to Shuichi, so that they could actually see any of that.

(Although the fact that Keebo apparently spent more of his time with Miu than anyone else is… unfortunately probably quite an accurate representation of what an audience would do. I have seen way too many LPers of this game hang out with Miu for reasons that completely elude me because why would anyone ever want more of her than necessary unless they’re shallowly taken in by the fanservice. I feel very bad for the sensible minority watching through Keebo’s eyes who were fed up with her but didn’t have enough of a majority vote to do anything about it.)

But that collage of illustrations we had a while ago that Tsumugi presented as part of “Danganronpa V3” rather proves that Keebo’s camera is not the audience’s only viewing option. Why would they want to limit the viewers to just that when they have Nanokumas everywhere and could be giving them the choice to follow whichever character they want? And since the Nanokumas are so invisible and mobile that they can get any angle, watching via them would also make one feel as though they’re really in the Danganronpa world anyway, even if it’s not literally through a character’s eyes.

Tsumugi:  “That’s why I’m so glad you survived all the way through!”

What the hell were you planning to do if he didn’t? Did you not even have any kind of failsafe in place to try and make sure nobody happened to murder him?

“Junko”:  “If the audience surrogate falls into despair, then the audience does, too. By making you fall into despair, I can make the entire world fall into despair!”

That’s, uh, not how audience surrogates work. The audience only feels the same thing their surrogate characters feel through the power of empathy and imagination, but that’s not the same thing as actually being in despair when their character is. If anything, seeing Keebo fall into despair should just make the audience cheer more for him to not give up and keep having hope. You know, just like they should also be cheering for Shuichi and his friends to not despair right now, if they were a halfway reasonable and decent audience.

“Junko”:  “My despair will turn from fiction to fact and destroy reality itself.”

However, Tsumugi most likely knows that this doesn’t make sense and is really just saying this to try and pander to the audience and make them feel like this matters. While it’s kind of half her fault for practically telling them herself, the characters in this story have completely messed up her script by figuring out how fictional this all is. But hey! Never mind them (who cares about them anyway they’re not real, right), this is totally all about you guys in the audience! She’s trying to make everyone ignore the fact that her story has gone completely off the rails and is no longer remotely about what it’s supposed to be about by enticing them with the idea that it’s now the audience’s story. You’re the ones in danger now! You’re the ones who get to fight and defeat Junko! Isn’t that just so fun, you guys???

Which, A, doesn’t even make any sense in the first place and, B, is horrendously bad storytelling to suddenly abandon the characters this story was supposed to be about like they’re irrelevant. But it’s going to work on this audience, because apparently they never really gave a fuck about any of this story’s characters in the first place, even though that’s the exact opposite of how an audience should act!

Maki:  “Is that why… you want the world to fall into despair?”

Maki Roll, don’t fall for it! That’s not what she’s trying to do and she doesn’t care about any of that! Maki has always been the most subsceptible to manipulation, and it seems like that one Flashback Light that brainwashed them into thinking that “despair” is always bad and that they are symbols of “hope” who must always defeat despair is still affecting her in ways she doesn’t realise are manipulation.

Himiko:  “Th-That’s… messed up!”

Himiko also briefly comments on this here like she might be buying this. Shuichi does not. He’s just staying quiet and watching.

“Nekomaru”:  “The outside world wants to see horrible setups and payoffs!”

That should be the case, because those are the kind of things that make a good story. But suddenly yelling about despair taking over the world in a way that makes no sense and is unconnected to any of the setup we’ve had this whole time? Not a payoff for anything. Should not be something the audience wants. They should want actual payoff for the characters they’ve been watching all this time.

“Nagito”:  “What could be more horrible than a fictional despair eroding the real world?”

“Junko”:  “No one could’ve imagined an end this hopeless.”

Yes, look, you guys, this is totally a super awesome plotline she’s come up with and it’s one that lets all of you be the heroes! please keep watching don’t change the channel just because things have gone off-script help

Keebo:  “…No. I won’t give in to despair!”

Tsumugi:  “Huuuh?”

Tsumugi has a gleeful “oh, I’m so surprised!” face here. She is making it quite obvious that Keebo’s reaction is exactly what she was going for. Keebo, no.

Keebo:  “If that’s the voice of the outside world, then the outside world actually wants hope!”

At this point, now that Tsumugi’s veered things around to totally be about the audience’s despair because who even cares about these people who aren’t real, is Keebo even talking about “hope” for Shuichi and the others? Or is this just “hope” for the audience to protect them from the evil despair that’s totally going to be inflicted on them? Almost certainly the latter.

K1-B0 – Ultimate Hope Robot

This is so clearly trying to rip off the ending of DR1. Which the audience is going to lap up because they’re raging genwunners. But this doesn’t work anything like that, because that hope was used to inspire the rest of the characters that the story was actually about. This is very emphatically not going to be that.

“Junko”:  “What is this?”

Keebo:  “This is the power of hope!”

It’s really not. It’s one guy who doesn’t have a clue what’s really going on yelling a bunch of meaningless words.

“Makoto”:  “The final battle between hope and despair!”

It was never a fucking battle! But no, of course it was, that’s definitely always been what those two words are about.

“Nagito”:  “The class trial is in disarray because Monokuma broke a rule…”

Himiko:  “You’re the one who broke the rule…”

Hah, I like that someone calls her out on that. Tsumugi’s still running away from all responsibility, because of course she is.

(“Smiling, putting on a mask, never saying what you really think. That kind of cowardice is just like Monokuma!” Kaito was really talking about the mastermind hiding behind Monokuma rather than Monokuma himself when he said that – and now she’s putting on even more literal masks than ever before.)

“Sayaka”:  “How about we start over and have a special vote?”

Keebo:  “…A special vote? But you’re the one who broke the rules in the first place—”

Keebo is quite right to point out that Tsumugi does not have the right to do any kind of life-or-death vote now that she’s broken the rules and messed everything up. Tsumugi, of course, completely brushes off his protest and does it anyway… and the audience lets her.

Trial 5’s whole premise of “Monokuma can’t do what he likes once he’s provably broken the rules” only works because the audience was supposed to agree that it’s unfair and cry foul, but… it turns out the audience is actually a bunch of mindless idiots who are totally okay with a meaningless vote and meaningless deaths to get them their hope fix. So… Kaito’s attempted best-case outcome in trial 5, which he was going for in the hope of saving his friends’ lives and ending the killing game, would actually have saved no-one and ended nothing anyway??? And what Kaito did achieve – letting Shuichi know that Monokuma can’t get things wrong because of the audience, which is why Shuichi went into this trial to prove Kaede spotless in another attempt to end the killing game – is also meaningless? Kaito faked his death and lied to his friends for a whole trial for nothing?

Out-universe writers, no. Why would you ever think this is okay? How can you just completely undermine the best case of the game like this?

(They’re also clearly not trying to go for a deliberate gut-punch of making Kaito’s efforts pointless, because the narrative isn’t acknowledging this at all. Apparently the in-universe writers are not the only ones who have no idea what they’re doing here.)

“Kazuichi”:  “Let’s just do one last vote!”

Monokuma:  “Cuz that’s what Danganronpa’s all about!”

The fact that DR1 and DR2’s stories happened to work fairly well with a final vote does not mean that it should be taken as a necessary part of a Danganronpa storyline to the point of shoehorning one in even when it doesn’t work.

The final vote in DR2 worked because that wasn’t decided on by Junko and was just a result of the way the world had been programmed. And the final vote in DR1 may have been also forced through by Junko when she didn’t really have the right to do so any more – but she was never entertaining her audience, she was forcing them to watch in order to make a point. Her vote continued that theme, because it was essentially Junko making Makoto stake his life on the belief that his friends would agree with his philosophy of hope (in her attempt to prove that they wouldn’t). Only Makoto’s life was on the line in it, and it was for a reason that was relevant to what had been happening and what he’d been advocating, so it didn’t feel especially unfair, at least not more so than you’d expect Junko to be given she wanted lives to be at stake for everything.

The vote we’re about to be forced into here is almost nothing like that. Oh boy.

Tsumugi:  “Between Keebo and I… Which of us should get punished?”

If that was all, that’d be fairly analogous to the DR1 final vote, and fairly acceptable. Keebo and Tsumugi are (supposedly) having a clash of philosophies, so this would just be them staking their lives on that. If it was only their lives on the line.

Himiko:  “To end in hope…?”

Maki:  “To end in despair…?”

Shuichi:  “We decide…?”

Yeah, why should these three get to decide? I thought this story was suddenly all about the audience now, not them! They’re not even real people, right? Why should they get to determine which out of hope or despair the audience wants to see?

But the vote they’re about to have doesn’t have anything to do with this whole deal of “bringing despair to the outside world” or about which one the audience prefers. Because Tsumugi doesn’t have a goddamn clue what she’s doing with any of this nonsense and might as well have not even done that whole bit in the first place. I hope this is out-universely deliberate at least, but at this point my faith in the out-universe writers is slipping.

Tsumugi explains that the “Despair wins” choice will result in everyone except Keebo continuing to live in the school, technically continuing the killing game but presumably never actually killing each other any more now that they know all the motives will be lies.

Keebo:  “No! That’s no way to live! Imprisoned in this school, living lives of despair—”

How exactly would that be a life of “despair”, Keebo? They’d be stuck there, sure, but at least the three of them would be alive, and they’re friends (minus Tsumugi, who would hopefully fuck off and leave them alone), so they should be able to find some semblance of happiness in it. You’re only saying it’d be “despair” because Tsumugi has arbitrarily slapped that label on it and therefore it must be nothing but bad, because “hope” is always good and “despair” is always evil, right?

“Toko”:  “E-Even if you went outside, there’d be n-no point.”

“Byakuya”:  “As I said, all your memories are nothing but fiction.”

“Imposter Byakuya”:  “Your hometowns, your families, your friends… they never existed in the first place.”

Wow, Tsumugi, you sure are making the option where they get to escape look more despairing than the one where they stay inside here and never have to face any of that stuff.

…Which actually is kind of analogous to the first game in that they’d be going out into a hostile world where they’re going to struggle to find their feet, and they’ll have to hope that they’ll be okay in that world despite everything. If the narrative was going to present it that way and have Keebo encourage them to still try and live in that world even if it’s scary because it’s better than being boringly trapped in here forever, this’d be acceptably similar to DR1. But nope, that’s not remotely what we’re going to be doing here.

Himiko:  “Th-Then at least put us back how we were!”

No, Himiko! Admittedly we didn’t see Himiko’s audition so she didn’t see what she “used to be” like, but the auditions they did see should make it very clear to all of them that the people they “used to be” weren’t them. None of you want to go back to being those people, guys; you should be able to see that! The people that you are now would stop existing if you did that! For all intents and purposes, you’d die!

Tsumugi explains that that’s impossible because Flashback Lights don’t actually retrieve lost memories and can only overwrite existing memories with fake ones. But it being impossible should not be the point anyway. None of them should even want this in the first place.

Shuichi:  “So… we can’t go back to the way we were?”

Shuichi, you saw the person who used to live in your body! You can’t possibly want to be him! You’d forget everything about Kaito and Kaede and become someone who wants to get executed in a killing game!

Apparently Tsumugi’s insistence that they’re all entirely “fake” has got to them so much that, despite all the evidence, they’re just clinging to the idea that “real” has got to be better, and nooooooo, guys, snap out of it!

Buuut it’s the “hope wins” outcome of the vote that’s the really stupid part. Tsumugi is punished and they get to escape, except…

“Taka”:  “However, you must follow the rules! The game will continue until the final two!”

Tsumugi:  “So only two of you can graduate.”

And why, pray tell, the absolute fuck, is this remotely necessary? The only reason that two-person rule exists should be as a minimum, because it’s not possible to hold a class trial with only two people left. If it’s also a strict maximum, then that means that this game is designed to kill fourteen people no matter what, even if there aren’t enough in-game murders for that. The point of this killing game is supposed to be that the participants brought all the deaths upon themselves (even though that’s not really a fair assessment at all when they were manipulated into it). Executing more people anyway even when it’s not prompted by someone becoming blackened in the first place is arbitrarily cruel and not in the spirit of the game at all. This rule should have completely ceased to apply any more, now that we’re in “endgame” mode where clearly nobody is going to commit any more murders. Killing two of them at this point just to adhere to this pointless rule is meaningless as fuck.

Plus, what right does Tsumugi even have any more to insist that they adhere to the rules when she broke them first? Oh, right, because the audience are mindless morons who don’t actually care if she breaks them despite the entire point of trial 5. (Geez, even Kokichi expected better from the audience than this.)

So, the bottom line is that this “hope wins” ending is… two of them get to escape into an outside world that doesn’t even see them as real people, after watching two more of their friends get completely pointlessly and arbitrarily killed. Such hope! Such meaning! Such narrative!

(Okay, they won’t get killed, as we’ll learn later on, but still. It is no less arbitrary.)

Shuichi:  “… We got this far… and you’re telling us to sacrifice more of our friends?”

Shuichi is crying and I don’t blame him. Why? Why should he have to lose even more of his friends for no reason? This isn’t fair! At least Kaede and Kaito’s sacrifices happened because they tried to make a difference, but this would be nothing like that!

“Gundham”:  “However… even if you do escape to the outside world, you will find it most unwelcoming.”

Keebo:  “…No! As long as we never give up, there will always be hope!”

Keebo. Dude. If you were trying to reassure everyone to stay hopeful about things that actually mattered, namely the idea that the outside world wouldn’t welcome them, or the thought of losing more friends, then maybe this would kinda sorta work and be a bit like Makoto was in DR1. But you’re just spouting meaningless platitudes! Stop it!

Keebo:  “If it will bring hope to everyone and the outside world, I will gladly sacrifice myself.”

You dying for completely arbitrary reasons is not going to make your friends hope for anything, Keebo! And you especially shouldn’t give a fuck what the outside world that’s gleefully watched your friends die wants from you!

I don’t hold it against Keebo, because he is genuinely well-meaning and trying to do a good thing here, but he is so, so deluded and misled.

“Makoto”:  “In order for hope to win, there needs to be one more sacrifice.”

That sentence doesn’t make any sense! That’s not hope! In the real Makoto’s story, hope winning didn’t sacrifice anyone except the mastermind! Makoto himself would have called total bullshit on the idea that pointlessly sacrificing his friends would be for the sake of any kind of hope!

“Sonia”:  “Do you understand now? Even if you choose hope, you will still suffer.”

Okay, so, look, I’m not saying that hope doesn’t involve suffering. Remember when I talked about my first-time experience of Kaito’s trial and how the rekindled hope that he might be alive was utterly terrifying? Yeah, hope is scary. But real hope is scary because it’s uncertain, because of the constant possibility that you might not get what you’re hoping for and fall back into despair. Being forced to feel completely arbitrary separate pain that has nothing to do with what you’re hoping for (in this context, they’d be hoping they can fit in in an outside world that doesn’t see them as real people) is not part of the reason that hope itself is difficult and scary and is completely beside the fucking point.

Tsumugi using Sonia here is the beginning of a sequence of her cosplaying almost all of the female characters (plus Chihiro) and having them be all “won’t you stay here with us~? *blush*”. Which is obviously deliberate pandering.

But, like… who is this pandering to? Isn’t she supposed to be persuading Maki, Himiko and Shuichi right now? There’s no evidence that Maki and Himiko are into girls, and while Shuichi apparently is, why should he care about these people that are, to his fake memories, historical figures and nothing more? Why would he be that shallow just because they’re girls? And if this is for the audience, first of all, why, they can’t influence this outside of Keebo’s one vote, and second of all… does she not fucking realise that only about half of her audience is even going to be into girls, and only a proportion of those people should be shallow enough to be swayed by this? Female characters are more than just objects of fanservice and romantic fantasy! There are plenty of people who enjoy this franchise who aren’t here for that, you know! Tsumugi is a girl, she should have more respect for her own goddamn gender than this!

Really, if Tsumugi was properly trying to persuade Shuichi, Maki and Himiko, then the best (cruellest) move would be for her to suddenly start cosplaying Kaede, Tenko and Kaito and being all like “hey, if you stayed here I could be them for you!” (the cospox thing was dumb and there should be no reason she couldn’t do that). Which would of course make all three of them do an immediate huge revolted NOPE, a lot like the time Maki thought Exisal Kaito was Kokichi pretending to be him except worse – but it’d be an impactful moment, at least. Honestly, Tsumugi cosplaying the dead V3 characters here would make this whole part of the trial far more viscerally uncomfortable, like it’s clearly trying to be, than just seeing the DR1 and 2 characters be the face of the villain when they’re not a part of this actual story.

(Man, imagine her doing the part last time where she reminded Shuichi of Kaede and Kaito’s inspiring lines by actually cosplaying them and reciting those lines in their voices, that would be awful, I would hate it and love it at the same time. It’d hammer home the supposed idea that they were always just lies even more.)

Keebo:  “Despair won’t end this killing game! Only hope will!”

Keebo says this just before we get dragged into a Mass Panic Debate in which Keebo’s only available bullet is “Hope”. When the only weapon you have is hope, every problem’s got to be able to be solved with it, right? No, Keebo.

This Mass Panic Debate is the worst and the reason I equipped Librarian’s Glare at the beginning, because then all the loud voices get silenced automatically and all I have to focus on is firing. If you don’t hit every single statement’s worth of “despair” in one round, you have to do it all over again, and a bunch of them have loud voices getting in the way. It’s far, far more mechanically difficult than any other debate in the game, which is not at all deserved on a narrative level when what’s happening right now is such a ridiculous mess.

Story time: when I got to this Mass Panic Debate on my first time through, since I was watching not playing and therefore had a little break to let my thoughts flow without having to pay as much attention to what was happening… I was really upset. I had loved almost everything about this game up to this point, and I really wanted it to have a good ending worthy of the rest of it. But this was currently presenting itself as that ending, and this was just bad.

This is supposedly analogous to the part in DR1 where Makoto fired bullets of hope at all of his friends, and I liked that part. It was refreshing and inspiring after a whole game supposedly all about despair to realise that it was actually about hope as well. But here, first-time-me just felt vaguely insulted at the idea that I was supposed to like this as much as I did that. This is just a cheap imitation of that which completely misses the actual point.

The protagonist is supposed to be meaningfully inspiring his friends to not give up and to face the hostile outside world with the hope that things will work out okay. But this “hope” choice they’re being given here is arbitrarily cruel, and Keebo’s words are not even addressing his friends, let alone any of the actual problems that his friends are despairing over. He’s just shooting the “hope” at Tsumugi’s “despair” like this is some kind of good-versus-evil battle. This is exactly the kind of one-dimensional, meaningless hope the characters were filled with when they saw the Flashback Light in chapter 5 – empty platitudes that don’t even remotely address the actual reason for their despair and therefore don’t fix anything at all. And that reason for their despair right now isn’t just the thought of the outside world but also simply the notion that they’re not real, which was pretty compelling when it came up and first-time-me wanted them to get back to that and address that more and hated the fact that it’d apparently been completely forgotten like it didn’t matter.

Of course, I don’t hate this part nearly as much now, because this isn’t the real endpoint of this trial, and with that in mind, Keebo missing the point like this is very out-universely deliberate. This is showing the “battle between hope and despair” that the outside world apparently craves that is the reason they’ve been watching these killing games for fifty-three seasons. Shuichi is going to figure this out quite soon, and then things will get back on track with the characters we’ve actually grown to care about properly addressing the question of how real they are.

But I’m still not super happy with this. Keebo is so obviously failing at presenting any kind of actual hope or compelling story here that it’s a stretch to believe that a sensible in-universe audience would want this either. Shouldn’t they care about the characters they’ve been watching this whole time and be frustrated, like I was, when the story abruptly veers away from being about them into this empty nonsense? Shouldn’t they be calling bullshit on the arbitrary unfair sacrifices for the vote, especially after Tsumugi broke the rules and had no more right to even punish anyone at all? (That was literally supposed to be the point of trial 5, dammit! Kaito deserves better than this!) Heck, shouldn’t the characters be calling bullshit on the vote rather than accepting it? (I can let them off a bit more though, since they’re still mostly in despair and not quite thinking straight.)

This would work a lot better if it was still trying to be mostly about the characters, and Keebo was actually trying to inspire them with hope. Instead of shooting at Tsumugi’s despair, he should, like Makoto did, be shooting the hope at his friends and trying to reassure them that surely they’ll find a place in the outside world that’ll accept them, that surely whichever two of them survive will be able to overcome these last deaths as well and find happiness somehow. That would be a kind of hope that would be reasonably believable as making a satisfying if bittersweet ending. That way, it’d be a lot easier to believe that the audience wants this, and to therefore realise that this is why the killing game has gone on for so long and will still continue if they let this ending happen here.

The fact that this isn’t what happens when it easily could have been makes me wonder how much of this part’s one-dimensionality was deliberate, and how much is the out-universe writers not actually realising that the situation they’re presenting here isn’t “hope” in any meaningful or compelling way at all. My faith in them on this particular front is not very strong, I must admit.

“Keebo! Keebo!”

“Keebo’s on fire!”

“gooooo Keebo!”

The audience has been there in the background throughout all of this – probably as what Keebo’s hearing in his inner voice – but up until now they’ve just been saying “Hope” or “Despair”. As this debate finishes, they finally start saying something of more substance, most of them cheering Keebo on like so. It sure sounds like they care about him as a character, which is what you’d expect if they’d been experiencing this game through him as the protagonist. But they don’t; we’ll see that very clearly later. They only care about him representing their own voices and nothing else.

“i wanna see the color of shuichi’s blood <3”

Wow, fuck, geez, okay. That “fan” of Shuichi’s from before has gone from “somewhat realistic if rather creepy considering that he’s real” to “absolute sicko”. What the hell.

“Now this is Danganronpa.”

Apparently we really are supposed to believe that this kind of meaninglessness is what people have come to like from this show over the years. It so incredibly shouldn’t be, though. What about all the actual class trials before the endgame? The characters struggling with the pain of watching their friends die or realising that their friend killed someone? Isn’t that more compelling than just yelling about hope being better than despair? Apparently not to these idiots.

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[Next post]

[italianfish]

Here’s some things that I’ve overheard recently

- That bridge was created by erosion

- Holy tolino that’s a nice tree!

- Ivy! There’s the guy we don’t like (Trump in a car)

- Why wouldn’t you want to be king? You could get corgis, they’re adorable

- That’s not an allergy, that’s a life choice

- Are you that one guy? Are you DongleMc DongleSon?

- Woooo! CHEMEX!

- THE FURIES ARE COMING

- I NEED A BOYFRIEND AND A SWEATSHIRT

- I wonder what animal that is? Oh wait, it’s a log

- Just a cone, no ice cream. I don’t like ice cream

- My chicken BLT came without the chicken!

- I should have kept the headband from the tampons

- You’ve been reduced to a codename

- Hug, Marry, Exile, the Brucified sleepover game

- It’s just the toes

- Parf Tarts

- It’s crispy?!?!

- When I’m like, 60, I’m going to do drugs

- What really is life without watching Bob Ross?

- 13 YEARS!!!

- Stacy’s mom is Parker’s grandma~

- EmBruce it

- It’s not a water break, it’s a hydration break

- That bird is using a crosswalk!

- I don’t know any colleges in Massachusetts!

- What even is frick without frack

- I’m emotionally offended by your haircut

- That’s like a cat fart

- Someone just shat

- I’M NOT A CHILD PREDATOR DEANNA!!!

- I’ll sue that movie, they stole my idea (Just finished watching Hotel Transylvania 3)

- See, Amanda. That’s your noise

- My mom told me that if you sleep with your phone under your pillow you get fat

- If he were gay he’d be adorable

- He’s racist to chairs

- Flarion is my boob

- Don’t throw the ball at the referee, it’ll hurt his feelings

- Fuck yeah, your name’s Keith

- Can you deep throat a firecracker?

- Your earlobe is soft

- I would sell my toes for my old hair

- It’s like eating a period, NO

- What a funny looking animal (Giraffe)

- Giraffes are the most ridiculous animals

- Ew, keep your ebola away from me

- Look at that glass shard, that must be uncomfortable

- Do sloths have ears?

- Lip jellies freak me out

- A: I have three boobs (Sloth in shirt) B: I have uh.... Arthritis

- Instagram knows I’m lonely

- Knock on any Nonna’s door and tell them you’re Jewish and they’ll pity you and throw you a feast

- But this time it’s just the nose

- I want Granny panties

- Why do we only have confidence when our shirts are off?

- Why is an 8 year old twerking on my leg

- She has curves, you have rectangles

- I’m depressed, give me your water

- Dude! I look like a freaking lion!

- My loofa unraveled...

- I’m eating ramen with a singular coffee straw

- These walls better be soundproof (Amanda loudly singing in the background)

- I’m ready for my 4am Taco Bell runs

- Wifi in Spanish is wee-fee

- I didn’t see the body

- We should crochet together

- Yeah! I was a baby model.

- I don’t know if he likes me or if he’s just the gay best friend

- Have you pooped this week? You need to poop

- You’ve got all your limbs and you’re ready to go

- I need affection

- Diego’s eating rocks again~

- Wait. You’re instagramming my dog?

- I love letting people know what I’m up to

- It’s so funny, it’s like the ying and the yang

- You’re in my world now Grandma

- Two nipples? I don’t need nipples

- You are one gassy fellow

- You’ve got a lot of nerve showing up on our side of the bus

- I can never tell if you’re just depressed or listening to music

- I’ve got a photo shoot coming up for a calendar, for hot teachers with 6-packs. I’m October

- 38 on rotten potatoes!

- I’m hungry, I’m delirious

- DON’T PINCH MY CHUB

- I love clapping thighs in the evening

- Dude, I’m so ready to mingle

- Do you have a magician book

- Let’s taste those minerals

- The sauce is forever

- Why is everything so straight

- The right nipples don’t deserve rights

- We used to have a zebra and he was vicious

- Very important, I forgot shoes

- You look like a lumber snack

- A: I’m the only one here who looks like a hobo B: Really? Say that again A: We can be hobos together

- Woah dude! Can we take a picture of you? *Truck next to the bus*

- What were you guys doing? Bathing yourselves in the toilet?

- I want to be those people in Wii sports (The background characters that make the noises)

- Then we can have a dance party in a prison cell!

- Most of the bible sounds like gay fanfics

- It’s Frozen all over again!

- I have my metal bus on the straw

- My mom told my Dad to not be a weenie

- I’m going to build my house doors really short so you can’t come in

- Do you want to be black with me?

- Are you the black man?

- How did chutes and ladders go sexual?

- What if there was a rotisserie chicken hanging from the ceiling

- No one said Californians are smart, they’re just hippies who smoke weed

- Stop losing me in airport bathrooms

- What’s with those muscular kneecaps

- Queers doesn’t shake hands

- I’m drowning! I’m not even in the water

- Is this baptism?

- Breakfast doesn’t deserve grace

- It’s not just airport bathrooms

- Ice Age, watch it, absorb it

- I call first waz

- If you’re saying waz you’re not fancy

- I have so many bodily fluids to get rid of

- Don’t eat the lotion samples

- Why are our shoes not curved

- I’m just a fat guy so everything is delicious

- My name is Gay Fieri

- *Monotone iCarly theme song*

- I love Chipoodle

- The others are just Bat-ships

- You ever tie a banana to a tree?

- Can we have a fashion show?

- I’m gonna waz myself

- That’s the Death Star again

- Why do you have glitter on you?

- I smoke the mara-ja-wanna

- I have a gelato emergency

- This is our entertainment for the day (Watching a (probably) crazy man dance)

- I have a lot of questions about pottery

- Ever since I was a small child I have found myself goo-goo-ga-ga

- There are too many cans

- We need to stop canning beans

- Forks are way better than spoons

- I hate spoons

- Do you not want two hours of smooth jazz

- A man just stole my nut

- That’s a really bad name for a gay bar

- Is your tongue comfortable in your mouth

- I’m a penguin enthusiast

- He kept force feeding me marshmallows

- Why would you judge a girl by her neck?

- Are there shampoo bars?

- Why would you want a shampoo bar?

- Don’t burn down the house

- Halloween is my day

- You want to be hydrated?

- Are you kidding me? Right in front of my salad?

- We can still cartwheel into a fiery ball

- It’s your last day of camp, why are you trying to land a plane

- There’s a scale from dude to bro to sir

- Gotta vacuum the bird

- I’m teaching my rabbit spanish

- Ok, who got the cheese on a bun???

- I feel like a wet lasagna

- You can get a star for Jazz???

- I have 3 bottles of hand sanitizer

- A- We make children cry! B- NO WE DON’T

- A- Can I have chicken on a plate? B- Chicken on a plate? A- Chicken on a plate

- I want to go to band to get sweaty

- Proactive, it helps your face

- The cult meeting is next week from 2-7

- This is so vegany

- I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THE SONG! NOT THE BEATLES!

- I have shrimp for later

- It burns my eyes, I love it

- It’s not that we hate you, it’s just that sometimes we can’t stand you

- Locked and loaded for a photoshoot first period

- This chalk keeps following me

- Kinda like a Starbucks atmosphere

- How dare she learn how to drive

- You have to sing our anthem with us

- It fits right into the squiggle

- I’m immune to hot sauce (Downs little cup of hot sauce)

- How was fake meatloaf?

- Can you train a fish?

- I haven’t worn pants in a year

- It smells like yogurt

- I have ties for every holiday

- There’s no laws on the moon, so like, you could kill someone???

- Optional means I don’t do it

- I’m gonna cook your dog!!!

- Is that where we almost went to park jail?

- We don’t condone sporting

- I want to turn orange

- Let’s make a buzfeed quiz that tells you what bridge you are

- (In Spanish) Where is the milk?

- If silence is gold, duct tape is silver

- A: So, what are you guys doing? B: Drugs.

- Young successful jewish boy

- A: I’m fun size! *Friend laughter* B: I’m just short...

- A: Where’s my medal??? B: Up your ass

- I’m a leech

- If anyone’s getting salmonella, it’s going to be me

- Does it involve backflips?

- I get to see all the little children getting confused as you disappear into a chair

- I think someone stole my balls by now

- A- A plastic knife can cut another plastic knife B- Why did you cut a plastic knife? A- Dedication!

- A- Oh my god! B- What does this have to do with god? C- *Whispering* Everything

- You’re probably going to die of liver

- I’m a five year old! You can’t have that profanity in here!

- Hey kids get in the van, we’ve got free wifi

- That’s worse than 10 babies hanging from a tree

- Are you from the piggers of creation???

- A- You’re like an old married couple B- (From the distance) He started it!

- I am a Jesus Christ in a person!

- YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MANY CHROMOSOMES THAT COST ME!!!

- I will implant a chip in your ankle! And you won’t know which one!

- I’M AN AVATAR! AIR! (Nothing happens) AIR! (Still nothing)

- When I was on a plane, we started dropping 200 feet at a time, the funny thing was that half of the plane had just gotten their drinks so half the plane was soaked

- Is Christianity a cult?

- A- Do you have experiences with holes B- (Very Unsure) Yes

- I’m her bitch, not your bitch

- He has the IQ of half a ferret

- A- Did you read the game manual? B- The gay manual??

- I want the pleasure of whipping you

- One time I poured a glass of apple cider vinegar and I drank it

- I changed my name to Johnyay West

- Too much damage done to the duner

- On a scale to 1 to Bill Cosby

- Ariana Grande is a criminal

- A- It’s sticky B- Can I take that out of context? A- No

- YOU ZIP TIED HIM TO A CHAIR?!

- It’s half past a freckle

- I need the crotch

- I don’t have imaginary friends. I don’t have friends.

- It’s like a mini fridge for pillows

- You hurt yourself with a stationary elbow

- My parents met at Burger King

- A- What’s the capital of Ohio B- Arkansas...?

- A- What do you do after school? B- Eat C- Sleep D- Cry

- Ask for cocaine, not Coca-Cola

- HOW HAVE YOU NOT TOLD US YOU MAKE STAINED GLASS?!

- You stole my meme bro

- A- Where you the one who drank chocolate sauce? B- (Seemingly proud) Yes.

- OW! MY CALVES!

- The Kardashians are necessary in our society!!!

- I feel like a homeless prostitute

- Ya wanna share a fork

- Now you have a pile of hot cheese

[centaurianthropology]

The Magnus Archives ‘The Puppeteer’ (S04E16) Analysis

A solid little creepy tale about a character you might not remember that you’ve met before.  Which, honestly, is just so in keeping with the theme of his power.  Come on in to hear my thoughts on ‘The Puppeteer’.

Holy shit, one of these assholes has the good sense to see a therapist?  Good on Melanie for taking that step.  She needs an independent ear to help her out (although I REALLY hope this isn’t the therapist that Peter Lukas recommended, because I don’t trust that person not to be another Lukas family member out to isolate and torment people).  And although she’s rightfully reticent to trust any old therapist, trying to find one is good.  And insisting that the sessions not be recorded?  Probably even better.  

The statement itself is a Web statement, which automatically makes thing a bit more convoluted, and delightfully so.  I also really appreciate that Jonny Sims continues to write a very diverse cast of narrators, including ones we don’t get to hear from often.  Having the narrator be a woman who had a successful career, but because of an unplanned pregnancy and the ridiculous demands of her industry, found herself without a job, is not only a great set-up for a horror protagonist, but also a very real sort of character that is very rarely featured in a lot of fiction.  

As for our other main player in the statement, a quick spot of research tells me, although in this universe Neil Lagorio worked with John Carpenter (real horror director), in our universe Neil Lagorio doesn’t exist, nor do any of his movies.  I suppose that someone who was alive and working in the ‘70s might be a bit too recent to turn into a character in a horror podcast the way Jonny has with other real figures like Robert Smirke.  Particularly as there are strong hints that the Puppeteer, Neil Lagorio, was a proper avatar of the Web.  

Not only that, but he partnered with another avatar, this one of the Spiral, the Worker-in-Clay Gabe on his early Claymation.  They eventually split, but it’s fascinating to see that two avatars of different powers might come together and work together because they wanted to work on creative endeavors.  

It brings up questions of free will.  We know Jon works with others, has interests and cares.  We could see him partner with another avatar so long as they had aligned interest and morals.  And it seems the same case with Gabe and Lagorio.  It might not have worked for long (Gabe had his ritual to attempt, and Lagorio had other matters that needed looked after), but when it wasn’t about trying to remake the world, they were happy enough to be creative together. And I really like that, horrible as they inevitably were together.

And like the easter-egg appearance of Gabe, this is also not the first appearance of Mr. Lagorio.  He did the special effects work for Dexter Banks in ‘Creature Feature’ on his (never-finished) film Widow’s Weave about a giant spider and the entire town of people who calmly fed themselves to it.  All based on a movie and/or book that didn’t seem to have existed.  Not only were many of the actors fed to the supposedly animatronic spider that Lagorio built, but Banks himself eventually was consumed as well.  Given what we heard about how he treated those who he didn’t like, but who did interest him, I think this is entirely in line with Lagorio’s character to have arranged for both, and for the Web to have been running a very long game in regards to Dexter Banks.  It’s also notable that, in that episode, Lagorio seemed far more in the background, with Banks the mastermind of the plot to feed people to the giant spider. But then again, that’s also a very Web thing to do, using someone flashy as a front for the true schemer in the background.

That the avatar of the Web is called the Puppeteer isn’t at all surprising, although I wonder if the Stranger felt as though it had been ripped off afterwards.  But the Puppeteer himself did seem to be the very embodiment the Web.  He was very cold, almost emotionless, and people either interested him (those he liked or hated both fell into this category) or they may as well not have existed to him.  That’s the Web all over, uninterested entirely unless it can wrap someone into its schemes.

I also find it interesting that his powers seem to have turned on him in the end.  While he started out being able to control others, he eventually lost control of himself.  I wonder if eventually the power that is being conducted through any avatar burns them out.  Even the ones who aren’t killed through other means will eventually fail because the human body can’t process that sort of power for that long.  

But even in that the Puppeteer was brought joy by turning himself into a puppet in his own house, using a web of ropes and pulleys, and created a parody of normal movement for himself.  And he enjoyed his retirement right up until the Web replaced him with Anabel Caine, and she came to finally kill him.  It doesn’t seem like he was sad or frightened to see it happen either.

And then there was the end. If someone would have told me that Daisy would get a lot more Welsh and a lot more practical after being trapped in that coffin, I would have laughed.  But I loved her talk with Jon.  I loved her leveling that whether he was a monster or not, moping around was pointless.  He can’t wallow and he can’t blame everything bad that happens to everyone around him on himself.

I do like that he basically defaulted to I’m-alone-because-Martin-won’t-talk-to-me, and I sort of wanted Daisy to point out that Martin was not only not dead, but also being influenced by a being of the Lonely. Maybe a bit of persistence on Jon’s part in talking to him wouldn’t go amiss.

Either way, Daisy may be one of the few who really gets Jon at this point.  She’s also been a monster, been taken over by a power, only to have it supplanted by another.  And somehow, that has created a sense of balance in her.  No, she’s not overtly strong anymore, but what Basira seems to fail to realize is that Daisy now has real emotional strength.  She survived the coffin.  She reclaimed her dreams by signing a contract with the Institute.  Even as Basira is finding her a burden, Daisy is forging her own path.

And dragging Jon out of his own head for drinks seems like one of the most practical solutions at this point.  I’m really hoping that she might even be able to do it for Martin (she’s certainly stubborn enough, and after the coffin, I don’t think Peter Lukas would scare her much) and Melanie.

And honestly, I hope Basira begins to recognize the strength and the level-headedness that is Daisy. This season really has been about turning the tables between major pairs.  Martin is now the distant one and Jon is pining away in the most obvious fashion possible.  Basira is stronger and taking risks and running errands for Elias while Daisy is in the archives being practical and making certain everyone around her doesn’t go insane due to the powers saturating the place.  The people who seemed the most down-to-earth now seem lost, and those who were lost are making genuine efforts to be better people.

I’ll admit that Daisy has never been one of my favorite characters.  The whole cop-who-abuses-her-power thing is just not a good look.  But having a Daisy who’s finally at least more in control of herself, who has slipped the leash of the Hunt by getting tied to the Buried and the Eye?  By finding a balance between powers rather than an unhealthy devotion to one?

I think this Daisy is awesome.  Not only that, but I think Daisy may have inadvertently done what I’ve only seen a few other characters do: find a perfect balance in which she is herself and maintains control over herself.  Robert Smirke spent his entire life trying to create an almost supersymmetric balance between the powers, and is the only non-aligned character I can think of with crazy powers.  It’s not clear if he managed it right up to his death, but that’s what makes Smirke so interesting to me.  I think he realized that the powers might cancel one another out if ones allegiance was split between multiple parties.  Leitner did the same, and managed to wield an amazing power in that balance as well.

And now we have Daisy who is balanced between the Hunt, the Buried, and the Eye.  Because it was unintentional, I don’t know if she can keep it up, but in this balance she’s found a peace and a stability I’ve never heard in her before.

And that strangely leaves me hopeful about Martin as well.  Because I think he may be intentionally balancing multiple powers. He’s stringing Peter Lukas along, clearly not the terrified and mindless thrall that Lukas was thinking this poor innocent boy was going to be.  And I think he can do that because he’s been previously balanced between the Eye and the Web.  And honestly, a Martin who forges a deliberate balance is one that interests me a lot.  Martin has always been such a passive character that seeing him become passive aggressive with both Elias and Peter has been heartening.  Now, honestly, I want him to get even more proactive.  I really want a Martin who is using Peter far more than Peter is using him, and because of his connections with the Web, Peter doesn’t even know it’s happening.  I want a Martin who comes out the other side of this plotline having created a unique balance between his own fear of being alone, his desire for knowledge, and his desire for control and slight tendency toward manipulation.  Any of the powers on its own destroys those it claims (every avatar who truly embraces their powers is evidence of that, and Lagorio is just a very overt example of being ultimately consumed by his own power), but those who manage the balance may be the only people who can actually achieve a degree of mental well-being and real, independent power in the entire show.

Either way, I’m very excited to have not one but two characters who may be intentionally or unintentionally dabbling in the balance between multiple powers.  Daisy is getting more and more interesting, and through her I’m getting interested in what Martin might do as a parallel.  And that’s a solid place to be.

Conclusions

Robert Smirke has been my favorite and most intriguing background character since his introduction. His whole balance-and-fear thing is such a different approach to the powers than any of the avatars or other worshippers have attempted.  I have to imagine that achieving that balance is incredibly difficult, and maintaining it without being torn apart must be even harder.  But he managed it.  Leitner managed it.  And now both Daisy and Martin might be managing it.  It all may end terribly, but I am really excited that we’ve possibly got two characters trying to find that balance.